#such a shame she had to perish for it though

[bri-sonat]

the single eye being shown somehow makes her even more malicious lookin. i love it.

[houserautha]

These Destined Ends

Part Thirteen

Summary: Jessica fulfilled the wishes of the Bene Gesserits to produce a daughter. You’re now burdened with the task of not only marrying the na-Baron, but also bearing his child — the Kwisatz Haderach. Will you take your fate into your own hands? Or will it always belong to those who control you?

Pairings: Feyd-Rautha x F!Reader

Word Count: 2.5k

Warnings: poorly timed erections, humiliation kink, cockwarming, you spit in his mouth, unprotected sex, unnecessary angst

Summary: I’m not super happy with this chapter. I wanted to go into detail with the Gom Jabbar scene but I couldn’t get any words out😂 so I skipped ahead to the smut part I wanted to write. Big things happening next chapter👀

The doors to the study burst open.

You look up from your spot nearby. Patience was not your strong suit, and you had grown bored while waiting for the Reverend Mother to administer the Gom Jabbar. Confusion flickers through you as you quickly assess the Reverend Mother's hastened steps.

"How did it go?" You ask, craning your neck to see into the study. Though you hardly thought Feyd would actually succumb to the test, it still worried you, and you feared you would see his body slumped on the floor.

"Never in my life," the Reverend Mother mutters. She stops in front of you. "The na-Baron is human, it seems, but not a man. Not like any that I've ever known."

You blink stupidly, her form retreating before you can even inquire about what she meant. She had been insistent that you weren't in the room with them and clearly she did not want to recall what you missed. She didn't even adhere to her usual courtesies of formal manners, scurrying away without even a backward glance.

Curiosity grows like a vine, winding up around you and inspiring you to creep into the study, unsure about what to expect. "Feyd?"

Your gaze sweeps the room. There's no jumble of limbs to suggest that he perished under the Gom Jabbar, which alleviates your fears slightly.

Finally you spot him, reclined in one of the plush chairs that had been pushed aside to make room for the assessment. Afternoon shadows cast him in a strange light, mostly hidden except for the faintest outline of his body.

"Feyd? What is she talking about?" You cross the room to him.

"That witch's test had...unexpected results."

"But you passed it?"

"Would I be here if I didn't?" He asks.

"No." You allow your eyes to adjust to the dim lighting, so different from outside of the study where you had waited. "What —?"

The words die in your throat.

Feyd sits, infuriatingly regal, in the chair, legs spread wide and arms draped on either side of the curved back. You notice for the first time his very obvious erection, straining against his pants and sufficiently flushing you with a perverse mixture of desire and shame.

"Feyd-Rautha," you gasp out, baffled.

"She thought she could deter me with pain, but clearly she is not as intelligent as she believes."

You hiss back, "You are abhorrent."

"Perhaps." He inclines his chin. "Show me."

His words pull behind your navel, the familiar tugging answer to his call. An image of Feyd, poison needle to his neck, deriving pleasure from the box entrapping his hand, flashes through your mind. No wonder the Reverend Mother was so horrified. It brings the slightest of grins to your face, and a subsequent wave of affection for the twisted, beautiful man before you.

"Show you what?" You ask coyly.

His voice is silk, red wine, life's greatest pleasures gliding over your skin. "Just how abhorrent you find me."

You close the space between you. Feyd keeps his gaze trained on you as you insert yourself between his legs, leaning down to work the fasten of his pants. Cock liberated, it springs up, red and  pulsing. It invokes a low, savage growl from him when you pointedly ignore his hardened length in favor of your own wanton needs, gathering your skirts in one hand while dipping the other down to your cunt. His cock twitches in response.

"So abhorrent that I don't know if you deserve this pussy," you murmur to him. "You disgust me. Why would I even want to fuck you?"

Feyd's jaw clenches and he wraps his fist at the base of his cock. "Shit."

Emboldened, you keep the steady rhythm of your own self-pleasure, sneering at your husband.

"People have perished under the Gom Jabbar and yet it arouses you, the unspeakable pain enticing your cock. You should be ashamed of yourself." Feyd gasps out, stroking himself. There's a dark intensity in his eyes. You realize that he craves this from you, needs to hear you flay him with your tongue. "Look how hard you are. You're pathetic."

His head rolls back, exposing the pale column of his throat. Your fingers hitch and you inhale at the sight of him like this. Wound tight with want, you remove your hand and climb into his lap. Feyd is only too eager to accommodate you, pushing his hips up in an effort to drive his cock into you, hands grabbing for your waist.

"Don't touch me," you snarl at him, swatting him away. Feyd whimpers. "You think I want your hands on me after what you did?"

A keening sound splits the room as you slip the swollen head of his cock between your folds, a display of his frustration — you keep still, refusing to provide the friction that he is so desperate for. He fills you thoroughly, stretching you until you feel you might burst, and you have to fight the urge to roll your hips against his.

"Don't do this," he snarls at you.

"What? Punish you? You practically asked for it, dear husband."

You sit on his cock, unmoving. He stares back at you with contempt, fingers digging into the arms of the chair. When he looks at you like this, like you are some unobtainable treasure, you might as well be seated on a throne. And, you suppose, it is an honor to have him buried to the hilt in your cunt, this man who has searched for pleasure in others, in violence, and now clings to you like none of it compares.

"Please," Feyd breathes out.

"Don't talk to me," you snap, shifting your hips just the slightest bit. His eyes flash. "But since you're so eager to use your mouth."

You grab hold of his jaw, squeezing tightly as you pull him closer. Despite the roughness of your grasp, it might as well be a caress, Feyd's cock flinching in response.

"Open," you instruct him, though it doesn't matter. With force, you pry apart his lips and slip your thumb inside his mouth, pressing down on his tongue and holding him in place.

It's an intoxicating experience — his hardened member resting in your cunt, his face in your hand, the pleading in his eyes as he gazes up at you. Power was addictive. You thought yourself above it, once. But all it took was the right person to hold it over.

Spittle sprays his face as you spit in his mouth.

Feyd's throat bobs. If it's possible, you swear you feel him grow harder inside you. "Close, but don't swallow," you murmur to him, revoking your thumb. Feyd obeys. At this point he's trembling with want and frustration. You remove your grip on his jaw but he keeps it lofted in the air; with more fondness than you care, you wipe the spittle from his face, the pads of your fingers swiping over the bannister of his cheekbones, his eyelids.

Finally you whisper, "You disgust me." Leaning back on your heels, you indicate for him to swallow, which he does. A smile curves your mouth. "You should be fucking grateful that I pity you. Grovel. Tell me why you deserve this."

"I don't," Feyd gasps. "I don't. I don't."

"Is that all you know how to say?" You sneer at him.

He shakes his head, desperation crossing his features. "No. I—I don't deserve you but that's..." he trails off, the words sticking in his throat like he can't quite work them out, "that's exactly why I need you."

To express your approval, you grind your hips against him. Feyd whimpers. His admission pleases you, injects you with a fervency that lifts you up on his cock and then back down. Feyd's thighs clench beneath you as you persist with the movement, steadying yourself by reaching behind him and grabbing the chair, and expletives falling from his mouth as you do.

"That's right you fucking need me," you hiss to him. You quicken your pace.

In retrospect, you should've milked the moment for all it was worth, but Feyd was already on the edge and you weren't far behind; his eyes roll back in his head as he comes, and you clamp around him, seeking your own finish. His cock softens in you. You do your best not to let any cum escape from between your thighs, vaguely grateful that its consistency is thick and doesn't normally demand much cleanup.

Smoothing the wrinkles from your dress, you ask him, "Tell me you got it."

Eyes half-lidded, Feyd gestures to the side of the chair. The Gom Jabbar rests, glinting in the dim lighting. Your gaze cuts to him.

"You didn't ask," he says, reading your mind.

"You didn't tell me it was right there?" You bark at him, bewildered. "I could've —"

The corner of his mouth twitches. "I wouldn't have let you."

You hesitate, knowing that he's right. Anger drains from you then, replaced with curiosity, and you wait for him to tuck himself back into his pants. Feyd rises to his feet.

"She didn't notice?"

"She was...distracted," Feyd says.

"And you replaced it."

"Yes."

"Good." Your gaze roams his face. "I must say I’m relieved you’re alive.”

Feyd lets out a laugh, deep and rasping. “I never thought I would hear those words from you.”

“Hopefully you don’t think less of me for it.”

“Nothing could make me think less of you,” he murmurs, then grins. “Though I might send a physician to check you for fever.”

You can’t help but laugh at this and you gently push his chest. Feyd captures your hands there, though, holding you close to him. You jest, “You’re lucky that I love you.”

Feyd’s expression shutters. Horror yawns in you, an all-consuming mouth threatening to swallow you whole. Why did you say that?

“Feyd, I —”

He takes a step away from you, dropping your hands. Even though he’s only a few inches away, a chasm might as well have opened between you. Feyd grabs the Gom Jabbar. “This needs to be taken care of.”

He brushes past you and, paralyzed with panic and disbelief, you let him.

Hours turn into days, which turn into weeks. A month. The longest glimpse you have of your husband is in passing; conveniently, a smuggler operation was uncovered the day after the Gom Jabbar, which demanded the full attention of the na-Baron. Feyd immersed himself in dismantling the enterprise. You, on the other hand, were left to the simple task of “carrying out your duty” — which, to your best understanding, meant to conceive the Kwisatz Haderach — an impossible task considering your husband refused to look at you.

You spent most of your days in your parents’ study, rifling through whatever documents were salvageable from Rabban’s raid. Most of them were meaningless to you, stocks of supplies and financial reports. But at least they kept your mind from drifting.

You’re in the study when the door opens and Feyd-Rautha steps inside, as solemn and impassive as he’s been ever since that day. Seeing him like this, so close and without distractions, pierces you like a dagger. The worst part of this whole ordeal is the fact that you missed him.

You missed his unwavering confidence, the flow of your banter, the slightest changes in his expression that only time had revealed their meaning. And, infuriatingly, you missed the sex. Missed the sear of his hands on your body, his cock in your cunt. You prayed to whoever would listen that he couldn’t see this on your face.

It definitely wouldn’t help your case after telling him that you loved him.

“The smugglers have been neutralized,” Feyd says first, breaking the silence.

You dip your chin. “I assumed they would be.”

“To celebrate this feat the Baron has requested that we host a feast with our allies, and to showcase our new rule over Arrakis.”

“Ah,” you reply. You wanted this to happen as part of your plan, but you weren’t sure what it meant now that you weren’t on speaking terms. You pause, waiting for Feyd to offer some sort of hint, but he just continues his blank stare.

Even when you first met, when you swore that he was the most wretched creature to exist, he did not treat you like this. Like you were nothing.

Courage thrums through you like a second heartbeat. “And what will your uncle, our allies, think when the na-Baron won’t even spare a glance to his wife?”

“I don’t care what they think.”

“You used to care what I thought,” you whisper back to him. Your throat works. It’s the first time you’ve uttered what you’ve been thinking. “And now you won’t even look at me, which is a punishment unlike any I’ve known.”

If it’s possible, Feyd stills even more. There’s a flicker of something behind his eyes but it’s gone before you can name it, like the glint of a fish on the surface before disappearing into the depths.

He rasps, “You don’t understand.”

“No, Feyd, I don’t understand, because you’ve been fucking avoiding me,” you growl. “So why don’t you enlighten me?”

His jaw clenches. “This isn’t the time.”

“If it’s up to you, it will never be.” You stand and cross your arms. “Just tell me. Then we can fuck until you get me pregnant and we’ll never have to speak to each other again.”

Feyd just stares evenly at you. You think that he might never speak but when he does, his voice is so low you can barely hear it. “This isn’t…this isn’t because I don’t…reciprocate…your feelings.”

He chokes out each word. Still your heart flutters traitorously.

“If what you said is true, then I am a liability to you. I am not meant for…I just wanted to give you time to think,” he finishes awkwardly. “Love is a weakness. It’s messy. It complicates things.”

“If you haven’t noticed, everything about us is complicated,” you reply, laughing bitterly. You feel your features soften. “That doesn’t change anything.”

“You’re wrong to love me, jewel.” He steps towards you, and you realize that there’s a startling vulnerability to his face, nearly childlike in its sincerity. A boy pleading for the care that he never received. “I will only hurt you.”

A wistful smile tugs at your mouth. “You’ve hurt me many times already, and yet I’m still here.”

“You’re a fool.”

“I know.” This time you’re the one to inch closer, bridging the gap between you. You can hear Feyd’s breath hitch. “Don’t hide from me. I cannot bear it.”

Feyd nods, once, almost imperceptibly. “Fine.”

You can’t help it — you reach out and straighten his collar, graze your fingers over his skin. He inhales sharply and it’s in that moment that you realize his avoidant behavior has been just as punishing for him, a matter of self-preservation.

“I will tear off your balls and use them to store my jewelry if you ever do something like that again,” you tell him. Amusement crosses his face, on the tail of his obvious relief.

“Mm, careful, I’d risk anything if it meant you would touch me.”

Part 14

Taglist:

@moonsoulk @heartarianagran @torchbearerkyle @unicoreads @taleah @mamawiggers1980 @jovialeggsbailiffsoul @harkonnin @avidreader73 @unicorntrooper @beebeechaos @kamcrazy123 @wo-ming-bai @m-indkiller @kpopnstarwars @dacreshoney @stopeatread @the-na-baroness @therealslimshady-1 @unnisumi @aoi-targaryen

[nonexistent-alfa]

So it's basically confirmed that the Thames household and the Archduke's House of Snow are related? Because I 200% believe they are. Dennis basically confirms it when he recalls the portraits of the last Archduke's family. The youngest young master of that family was speculated to have survived and gone into hiding and continued his lineage somewhere. Now, that happened 200 years ago.

What if the youngest young master of the Archduke's House of Snow fled to a different dimension when his family was annihilated by the Purple Bloods. A dimension which we know as Nameless 1? Of course a fugitive like him wouldn't have continued with the Snow family name. So he started his family of Thames. (Gasp- what if the youngest young master's name was Thames Snow? Or maybe someone else in his family was named Thames whom he named his new family after?) It makes sense because we don't know exactly how far the Thames family's history goes. All the noble households in the kingdoms don't necessarily have to have a history as old as the royal family. The Thames and Snow families both being famous for their red hair is a detail that I don't think Yoo Ryeo Han-nim would have included without deeper intentions.

With that in mind I went back to the chapter where Cale exchanged words with fake Hilsman and... It kinda shook my belief that the Thames are the Red Bloods. Even though I thought before that it's gonna be the same as the Dabi-Touya reveal. But Fake Hilsman admits that he is not a Hunter and seems to have grudge against the Hunters.

In fact he says "anyone with Thames blood should loathe the Hunters". That it'd be a shame if Cale didn't have the drive to annihilate the Hunters. If we think of it in relation to the Archduke's House of Snow and go with the theory that the House of Snow is the predecessor of House of Thames, then it makes sense for the Thames to loathe the Hunters (Purple Bloods) who almost wiped out their ancestors.

Okay, let's make a list of things we know so far in relation to this topic

The Thames household perished when Jour Thames was young. The young Jour, the conscience in the half of Jour's ancient power presumed to be in her mid teens by Cale, says "so I really did end up alone" when she reads the diary of her older self. Which means the Thames household perished sometime after that, but still before she graduated from Academy because that's where she met Deruth and Deruth says the Thames had perished since before he met her. So within that short timeframe of Jour's mid-to-late teens, the Thames household perished (or went into hiding more likely).

Zed Crossman, who became king at a young age, helped erase the records of the Thames household. It's also speculated that Alberu's mom died because of the Hunters. Well, it's only Cale's speculation but it's a highly likely possibility.

After disappearing from the royal palace after it was attacked, Zed has been dimension hopping??? Because God of Death can't track him down because his location keeps changing. Is he the one chasing or being chased? Whichever it may be, I think the answer is pretty clear as to who his enemy is.

I think it's the Five coloured household. They're the only ones who don't have a home base unlike the other households so if Zed is the one doing the hunting then it makes sense for him to be running around. The Black Bloods patriarch said the ones responsible for the incident at the royal palace were the Five-coloured before dying. So if Zed is the one being hunted, it also points towards the same household.

Additionally, Fake Hilsman said there were Hunters present at the Puzzle city battlefield where the Sealed God's temple appeared. Cale noticed a couple of strong individuals recruited by his father were missing at that point. Safe to conclude those were also the wanderers of the Five coloured household.

The Hunter household known as Red Bloods which is thought to be perished is extremely important in all of this since (and this is a spoiler even to myself) Jour's presumed brother (the fake Hilsman), who is a Thames himself, and Cotton (God of War's holy maiden) are looking for them. Choi Jung Gun also told Cale to look for them in the Sloth test.

Which reminds me of the other source of information in Cale's inventory. The white mask worn by the White Star. His ancient powers were Embraced in that mask by Cale. If he only wishes, he could talk to White Star's conscience in the ancient powers, which I don't believe would have disappeared with his soul. He could ask White Star about how the Thames perished.

But, from what we can gather from all this is that the Thames (and Snow) are likely not Red Bloods.

[mikedfaist]

Actually dying for more riff stuff !! Like I can’t stop thinking about rich reader! falling in love with such a scumbag that, at the start, you have to keep it from your family because you know they would hate him. And maybe he doesn’t argue about keeping the whole thing a secret, maybe he gets a little possessive and doesn’t want such a pretty little diamond like you get filthy from his lifestyle and the guys. And maybeeeee once it’s all out in the open crazy chaos ensues, your family refuse to accept him and the boys are deeply hesitant about you too, but riff doesn’t care, riff would go to war for you and vice versa.

Actually in pain.

You are his diamond. You truly are the most incredible, perfect, ravishing person he’s ever had the pleasure of sharing the same breath with. He doesn’t want to tarnish you. Fuck, he truly can’t find a conceivable reason as to why you love him. He knows he can’t offer much. Why you chose him over everyone else will remain a perishing mystery, and he promises, until his own dying breath, he will go to war for you.

She always makes sure he has food in his fridge, clean clothes, and a roof over his head. He always makes sure no punks are sniffing the streets in her direction. He always walks her home after work, though most times he’s a safe distance away to steer away any prowling eyes. She will always write him notes and drop them on the sidewalk, and he keeps every one of her notes in a tin can under his bed.

Meet me on the rooftop tonight. x

I love you, baby. x

Let’s run away. x

He would drop anything for her. He’s truly devoted, and the boys know something is up when he fails to show up to the park some mornings, or his own apartment. They are the first to discover the two of them. You seldom come around his apartment, because the boys come and go as they please, but Riff was certain they would all be at the docks that afternoon, and he wanted time alone with you.

But it was Ice and Action who showed up to get some beers, and they found the two of you nearly undressed on his sofa. It’s a sight you can’t really come back from. I think the boys feel some betrayal, because doesn’t Riff tell them everything? He would never keep something from them. They begin to doubt Riff’s loyalty, and his placement within the group, because is he really bailing on plans to hang with a girl?

“You think—she’s not just some—“ He’s seeing red. How fucking dare them ball you up into some insipid category. You aren’t just some girl. Shame on them for looking at you and even thinking such a thing.

He’s starting to regret not fulfilling your wishes on running away together. Stealing a bunch of your parents money and buying a house upstate, changing your names, and having three kids. It’s not too late for that. Once your parents find out, they’d kick you out. They don’t want you around scum like him. They’d have you settle for a kind lad at the prep school. The same boys born with a silver spoon so far up their asses that it’s fossilized. But those boys wouldn’t protect you like Riff does.

“Please,” he tells the boys, his shirt still hanging over the backside of his sofa. “I love her. I can’t lose this.”

[hirayaea]

What I see most is people criticizing both Xavier and Queen MC, even though, as you yourself said, their relationship is more complex than it seems! Queen MC's duty as a defense mechanism and Xavier's focus on discreetly wanting to save her.

But now I'm curious, do you think Xavier would have run away with Queen MC if she insisted?👀

hello anon (о´∀`о)

that is a shame, because the lightseeker era actually gives a lot of insight to xavier’s personality, and it explains why his persona is so complex!

lightseeker xavier is a prince tasked with carrying the legacy of philos, but he when he finds this legacy is actually bathed in the blood of the woman he loves, instead of choosing one or the other, he decides to explore a third option (which is operation backtrack).

while all the details haven’t been revealed, we do know that xavier has been, for hundreds of years, trying to find a way to save mc from death. but, we also know that he wants philos to prosper (i forget what he says in English, but in Japanese he definitely says “may the planet of Philos last everlasting”). when he leaves mc in the lightseeker era, these are definitely his goals.

however, I also believe that if xavier were cornered into a choice, he would probably choose mc. and, the only person that can convince him to choose otherwise (like choose philos instead) would be mc herself.

hence i think, if queen mc had told xavier very clearly, that she wanted to run, he would have dropped everything and brought her to uluru and they could live until philos’ core expired or until one of them perished. but i also think that both of them know, deep down, that neither of them are that selfish. both of them have a strong sense of duty to each other and to their people, and running would mean abandoning all of that. one of them (likely mc) would probably hesitate and say, “we have to go back”.

their hesitation to abandon their duty is actually what makes them such great characters, because they are so upright and strong but they acknowledge they sometimes waver in their own beliefs.

however, from present time onwards, i feel that there will be a disconnect in how strongly they feel about their responsibilities simply because of how xavier is the same person all throughout time while mc resets as she reincarnates.

i imagine that as time went by xavier’s priorities might have changed and he may be leaning towards choosing mc without thinking of saving philos anymore. some of the anecdotes actually hint at this (that maybe he should just abandon traceback II and settle down). however, he’s obviously still not decided (he told jeremiah that one day, he’ll get them all home).

i’m really excited to see how this will all unfold because so far this story is so wonderfully written, and the complexities only make me hungry for more

again I’d be happy to discuss more cause I do have a lot of thoughts (sooo sorry for rambling)

thank you!

[partywithoutsmiling]

Do you think you can tell us what happens in would tour specifically at the end when the strings are broken? Is branch there? Does the world go gray or does it stay colourful because their technically is more strings? Oooooo how do the leaders react/find out about this random gray troll who sum how has made more strings?!?!

I think Branch would be there for sure

Skipping ahead of the timeline, after the events of the 1st movie- and realizing Poppy did miss him, he would be rather reluctant to leave his Tribe again for a while (his reawakened crush on Poppy certainly not helping matters)

However, he has now been on the move for so long, that staying in one place indefinitelly gives him jitters (and bit of a spoiler, but he did manage to meet at least one of his brothers on his travels, that made him realize that perhaps this Wanderlust is hereditary to an extent)

Also ever since returning to Pop Village, he came to realization that King Peppy seem to know more about the wide world than Branch had suspected; before, he just thought that the Pop Troll's ignorance stemmed from their isolation and decades of selective culling- knowledge and histories are bound to be lost and forgotten in that case, but given the nervous glances Peppy sends his attire and his rock guitar, Branch can put one and one together.

But Peppy doesn't ask and Branch doesn't offer any explanation, and while Poppy is curious enough to ask Branch where he went, she doesn't push when he just says 'away'. She still remembers when Branch just up and disappeared one day and no-one cared to notice that for weeks- to an extent, not even her, even though she is the most aware of his prensence than anyone.

After that fiasco with the funeral, Poppy just figured Branch holed up himself in his bunker to sulk- or so she thought- and will come out when ready. And truthfully, she thought that it was, for once, a good idea- because the mood of the community was not great, when it came to the grey troll, and she herself was at loss what to say or do to make it better. She could hardly defend Branch's actions for all that she understood his freakout (at least a little bit)

It was only when more time than usual passed that she grew concerned- while the other trolls around her didn't.

A little bit of angsty idea was that Branch, in his shame, left behind both Floyd's vest and his old Hideout Plan, as those were two mementos that really tied him to his old life, and Poppy- with bit of brute force- managed to get her way into the bunker and found both.

She was really just a teenager then- and was suddenly forced to come to a reality where a Troll that was supposed to be her responsibility as a future Queen just... left. Left, because he felt so unwelcome in the Village- unwelcome in her presence- that feelings themselves driven him away.

And similar to Branch, Poppy had no idea other trolls existed- there was only the Village and the Bergen Town, and all the dangers that existed between it. It was unspoken rule that to leave the Village meant a certain death- and here she was, holding Branch's iconic vest that he never ever takes off, holding a yellowed scrapbooked plan of childlike wonder, that revealed a familial history of heartbreak and abandonment (after all, she knows these names, she knows Brozone songs and trivia by heart)....

Honestly, She and Branch probably came to be peas in a pod, when it comes to feeling of self-loathing and lack of self-worth.

After all, perfect Queens don't allow their subject to become outcasts

Perfect Queens don't turn blind eye towards unjustified shunning

Perfect Queens don't certainly drive away their friends to perish in the wilderness

And for the next 4 years- especially after the uncomfortable realization that only handful of people even care that Branch was gone- she felt deep guilt and suppresed grief very keenly, plagued by what ifs; what if she went to him the day after the funeral, what if she checked up on him that very night- would he had stayed? What if she never pushed him like she did, secretly delighting in crafting the most annoying glitter-spewing invitations, knowing it irritated him What if she was kinder, respected his refusals better, listened to his warnings

Would he had stayed?

And honestly, up until the point that he returned, she had no answers, and thought she would never got any

So after their reunion, she burns with questions and curiosity- and holds it back, because he already left once, and she is terrified to push him away again, this time for good. Because that's what she focuses on now- he came back.

Of course, that relief changes nothing when mere seventh months after their peace with the Bergens- after they repaired their village, after Poppy got used to having Branch by her side, singing, dancing, playing, harmonizing

She is suddenly feeling like thrown into a cold water when he tells her he wants to go traveling again, and all the fears and past grief comes rushing

I believe they would have quite the row about it- unknowingly reminding Branch of the night his brothers argued and left, which only pushes him to be angrier- while Poppy uses her outburst to hide the irrational terror she feels

So it ends with Branch storming off in a huff and Poppy storming off in a huff- but when her senses catches up to her and she is quite panicked to make ammends and to sooth the argument over, Branch is long gone

Few more months passes, and while not as cheerful, Poppy tries to keep herself upbeat- then the invitation comes, Peppy finally admits to there being more kind of trolls, and to her it is like Oh, of course.

The excitement returning, she now has secondary goal to her 'unite the tribes together' under big party- she just knows Branch is living with one of the tribes now- and she is right, when she encounters him in Lonesome Flats

(Well, after he learnes that she got thrown into jail for her Crimes against Music that is pf)

Branch, naturally, still has no idea about the Strings (as he dipped out before Peppy gave that piece of history away) but learning about them now doesn't give him any more peace of the mind. Contrary to his first mindset in the original plot- where he wanted to avoid the other trolls altogether- he is now stalwart defender of all genres, and hates the idea of any of them disappearing.

(A side note: in his wanderings, I think the only rulers- or would be rulers- that he had met was Delta, Trollex and Barb; Trollex had just been freshly crowned and Barb has not been queen yet) (He and Barb probably struck a very odd friendship- where Branch had no idea he was hanging out with the princess of Rock- namely because Rock Trolls didn't use the term of 'prince' and 'princess' for their heirs- and he probably told her all about his travels) (Hearing that she is behind this mess makes him feel horrified. Did he gave her the idea to try and take over the world?)

Anyway, events happens, the finale comes- the final showdown XD

Only, the fight plays out quite differently

Branch and Barb being friends, he confronts her about what she's doing and quite stubbornly gets into her face about her ideas. Dares her to change him the way she wants to change everyone- dares her to erase him, like she dreams about

It makes her hesitate for sure- she already went so far, and wont be stopped now. Expression hardening, she aims her guitar at Poppy and strikes the chord- not expecting Branch to jump between them.

This event probably doesnt have the desired effect that she imagined. Had Branch had been just a normal Pop Troll- or as close as to one genre as one can get, he would have been Zombified without any issues.

But with the Power Chord, it's Strings against Strings- and the results are probably quite... explosive. Devastatingly so.

Only, Branch has an unknowing advantage- his seventh String, shining so innocently from his hair among the others.

When it comes to matching powers, the Royal Rock Guitar looses, pathetically so- and as the stage around them explodes, so does the guitar, taking the power of music with it, leeching everything of colours and light, untill nothing but darkness and greyscale remains.

Except for a singular troll that stands tall and proud in the middle of it all, injured, sure, but colourful, rainbow heart shining through the fuzz on his chest, the strings in his hair glowing brighter than ever XD

[rootytootypie]

❤️💨🫘😳🤢🦸‍♂️for Spiderman please. Uhhhh not the Tom Holland one, the adult versions just to be clear hehe

💨: On a scale of gassiness, Peter is definitely a reticient seven. He doesn’t go around tooting his horn at all, but his Aunt May knows this (other) little secret. She thinks it’s the sweetest thing her nephew is so polite, but she always makes sure there’s Gas X, ginger ale, and mint around the house to settle his poor stomach. She also definitely makes sure Mary Jane is in on it once Peter moves out, so even at ESU, he’s well stocked with remedies for his tummy troubles. MJ is super subtle about it, making sure he doesn’t realize she knows until he’s ready to tell her (mostly because he’d be mortified if he know his aunt told his crush all about how he’s not actually an avid tuba player, and in fact has never even owned the instrument). Peter’s actually more shy with friends and family than strangers, mostly because he finds his loud gas so embarrassing, but also because he doesn’t want to worry anyone with his stomach problems.

🫘: Peter and beans have a dangerous, odiferous affair going. He knows he shouldn’t touch them in any form, but in one of the culinary capitals of the world, how can he resist refried beans, bean dip, bean chips, and all the forms it takes that have Peter swinging home tooting like a tugboat? They just smell so good going in? How can they stink so much coming out? Yes, they require a retreat to a fortress of solitude (his bedroom at May’s, the dorm room at peak party times so Harry’s out, or his apartment), but the taste makes it worth it. He pines, he perishes (mostly because he’s a little afraid Triple J will declare Spidey a gaseous menace).

😳: When you’re gassy like Peter, you definitely have a few embarrassing farts in your memory banks. But there only one that can be decreed the worst.

It was Peter’s first college party at ESU, in the extreme ostentatious Alpha Mu Pi mansion on campus. The place was cavernous, with no doors clearly marked and most of the freshman being as clueless to the layout as he was. This was very bad, because his nerves had driven him to packing in the chips and bean dip abandoned in the corner. And after about fifteen chips, Peter’s stomach was bubbling. He was sure it was brewing something nasty.

His lack of direction led him to a door another random guy thought might be the bathroom. Instead, as Peter flung the door open and saw two guys making out, he let out a *BBBBBBRRRRRRbbbbbblllllrllllrllrllllllBBBBB!* that rang out louder than the music pumping on the stereo. Everyone was looking at him, including the gay couple, one of whom happened to be Rodney Worth, the starting quarterback who just transferred from Crofton University.

Peter and his fart had just accidentally outed the quarterback to a packed frat party. For weeks, he hung his head in shame, especially as the news hit the school paper. He not only embarrassed himself, he’d ruined some poor guy’s life (I’m partly picturing the Spideyverses of the past films, so it’s technically always the 2000s/early 2010s in their universe; i.e. Rodney would NOT be in for a fun time). He finally sighed, gathered up his courage, and went to Rodney to apologize.

He found Rodney under a tree in the quad, openly reading James Joyce to his boyfriend. “Can I talk to you, Rodney,” Peter asked nervously. The broad shouldered football player nodded and stood up, following Pete a few steps away.

“I’m really sorry for outing you,” Peter said. “It was an accident, but I know that doesn’t make things better, so I’m just plain sorry that the news spread so much, and-”

“Sorry,” Rodney said, perplexed. “I’ve been wanting to thank you. I’m finally free to be who I am, and fuck anyone who thinks badly of it. Because of you, I’m not burdened by any secrets. I’m gay and proud.”

“Oh,” Peter said, surprised. “Well, that’s great. I’m glad there was a positive side for you.”

“Do me a favor, though,” Rodney asked with a grin. “Lay off the bean dip, okay?”

❤️: Peter was downright terrified to fart in front of MJ. He was afraid one toot would be the thing to make her snap out of dating him and remember him as a geeky neighbor boy instead of a boyfriend. He held it pretty steadfastly…until one night when they end up on the coach together watching a movie - and the popcorn mixed in his belly with the bean chips he ate as a quick snack. Peter shifted, ready to head for the bathroom - just as she rested her head on his shoulder and wrapped her arm around his waist. She looked up at him, and her eyes made him want to melt. “I’m so glad we get a night to ourselves,” she said. “No urgent crimes to interrupt, no crazy missions, or jacked up supervillains. Just you and me.”

“Same,” Peter squeaked, his voice breaking from nerves.

“Are you alright,” MJ asked. “You look kinda feverish. Can you still get sick?”

“I’m fine,” Peter protested. “Just…happy. Content. Can’t believe how lucky I am.”

“Yeah…okay,” MJ said. “If you’re sure.”

“Sure as shootin’,” Peter heard himself say, and blushed. Where the hell did come from? At least his embarrassing little problems is under wraps-

*PrrrrrooooooBLLLPBLLPBLLP!*

“Oh, God, MJ, I’m so sorry, I can’t believe I-”

“Finally showed me your tuba playing,” MJ snarked, giggling.

Peter pouted. “Just for that, I’m gonna point out you toot in your sleep,” he groused.

“Aw, Pete,” she said. “Is it really bad? There’s some ginger ale in the fridge I can get you.”

“…Okay,” Peter agreed. “But if I have to fart more, will you still cuddle me?”

“Duh,” MJ said. “Just stand up if you have to shoot webs out of your butt, because I just bought this couch from Pottery Barn.”

“…I love you,” he said, giving her puppy dog eyes. “And I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sor- Oh, my God, that’s vile! Talk about silent but violent. Apology accepted! …Now come back here, I’m cold.”

🤢: Peter is very easily grossed out by certain people’s farts. Certain people being Flash Thompson on a power trip farting in his general direction. Other than that example of fart torture (not really my scene), Peter is sorta ambivalent to farts. Well, the one exception is when he sneaks up on criminals and one of them farts in surprise. That cracks him up. He’s definitely as much of a worrier as his friends are about him, and happily give out tummy rubs and forehead kisses to any of his girlfriends who are gassy for whatever reason, but especially period cramps.

🦸‍♂️: He doesn’t fart web. That said, his sudden bean intolerance only came after he was bitten by the spider. Before that, he didn’t struggle with any food. There have been times the resulting farts propelled him forward by a few extra centimeters as he swings through the city, so the gas has also definitely gotten more powerful since he became super. It’s as if the bite gave him extra protein farts as a consequence of his newly developed bod.

[aaronsrpgs]

I've been working on the encyclopedia for SpeedRune, my rules-lite ancient world fantasy game. Here's the intro and some of the entries.

On Grazing & Shepherding

Being a failed guide to raising sheep across the wide world

& also a failed guide for accurate information regarding said world

An Apology to the Reader: When we sent our missionary, laden with food and gifts, on a momentous journey to discover new ways of raising sheep, we hoped that we would compile their findings into a document both helpful & hopeful for any being across the vast flatness of our world who, like us, takes joy in the labor involved in the raising of sheep, preparation of wool, and cooking of mutton.

What we got instead was a plagiarized & bowdlerized document, mostly taken from the poet Erlo, who himself was a collector of tales from thieves, outcasts, bards, and other untrustworthy types.

It is with great shame that we release these notes to the sheep-raising public, only because we made an oath. One hopes that enterprising shepherds might find, with devoted digging, some useful sheep-raising facts herein. However, it is our firm belief that everything presented here is a fabrication.

Our missionary has been branded a traitor and heretic, and their name has been removed from all records; they have been sent forth to survive on what fodder they can find.

In our failure,

The High Council of the Church of the Sheep God

A Plea from the Author

Ere, I was wont to think in bursting poems.

Regarding everything I write: it’s true.

Lo, though I may be punished for my tomes,

Often the writing’s harder to subdue.

-                     , missionary of the Sheep God

The heretical missionary’s name has been stricken from this work by the order of the Sheep God’s Grand Priest.

Angel

A sort of spirit or small god that lives inside us and is also a part of us, like the stomach or like spit. There is much debate about its purpose.

Some believe that the angel helps us discern what is best for ourselves and our people. This is alternately called moral behavior and selfishness. Some angels believe one should do right no matter who is watching, and failing to do so is called sin. Other angels only encourage righteous behavior in the eyes of the other, and the opposite of that is known as dishonor.

Others believe that angels come in many types: good, bad, childish and petulant, old and reserved. Some people are born without an angel or have theirs driven from them by a curse.

What is agreed upon across the world is that our urges and inner voices come from our angel, and when we die, the angel dresses up in whatever is left of us and goes to the underworld or haunts the place we perished.

Gender

For each person in the flat expanse of the world, there are at least two beliefs regarding gender and sex. However, all civilized folk at least pay lip service to the following story:

While most gods were selfishly sporting and fighting after the universe came to be, the Earth God had created art. Her first art was the art of pottery, and she made eight great pots, each painted in eight mineral colors.

Next she created the art of cooking, and in a sacred iron pot, she kept a broth brewing. The other gods’ sporting and fighting left plants growing in footprints and animals springing forth from wounds. Their sporting and fighting also left crushed stalks and broken beasts, and the Earth Goddess collected these. She dropped roots and leaves, skin and bones, into the broth. Every eight days, she poured it into one of her pots. Then a new broth began.

The pots of broth were sealed and submerged in the Earth Goddess’s other art, which we call magic (but which is actually something else). After eight full moons passed, the Earth Goddess cracked each pot, and people poured out.

This is why we come in eight different shapes called genders (which, unlike most shapes, is a shape on the inside of us). The broths roil in us, salty and fibrous, but some are more hazy, while some have the clarity of golden water. (There is a tongue for every broth.) And the waves of magic (which is actually something else) and the changing light of the moon allow us to grow and change and settle like a tide, taking new shapes and lapping up new broth.

There are those who don’t believe this tale. Some demand nine pots and something other than broth in our veins, for the gods could not conceive of a world other than their own. Other nonbelievers are sad little almost-humans who history desires to overlook, only sometimes they gain power and money enough that others begin to believe their sad tales.

Horse

These animals were permitted only for the gods and their chosen servants. They ate the grass of heaven and could move like lightning. A clan of humans grew angry with the gods, though, and plotted to steal some horses for themselves. They creeped up to heaven on a ladder woven of hair (this was before heaven was sealed), and on seeing the perfect horses masticating upon the perfect grass, they whooped and laughed and jumped up on the animals.

The horses went wild, unused to the imperfect rumps that now sat upon them. They whinnied and ran, hooves kicking up the immaculate sod of heaven, and they ran and ran some more, until spit bubbled from their mouths and sweat coated their flanks. Many of them died right then and there.

The humans tamed the few horses that lived and rode them home. They hid the horses in a barn made of sod, so when the gods came by and asked if their horses had come through, the humans could say, “Look at our fields. There are no horses there.” So the gods left and the day passed.

At night, a powerful weeping came from the barn, and a chorus of pleas: “We are here! There is no fresh fodder! We are in a tight, dark place!” The horses could no longer remain silent. And the gods came down like falling stars and pulled the sod roof off the barn. Their horses huddled there, and the humans came out and professed ignorance.

The gods, being fickle and strange, cursed both the humans and the horses. “If you so desire these creatures,” the Wind God said, “let it be that you can never be apart from them.” And the humans and horses were joined into centaurs, which have the top half of a human but with the jaws of a horse, and the bottom half of a horse but with the rumps and feet of a human.

Perhaps once a generation, the centaurs birth a true horse, and this fine beast is usually destined to serve a hero. And there are rumors that other people, far away from here, know how to treat a horse, and they are allowed the privilege of keeping whole herds of them. But I’ve never seen this.

New Rune: Horse

Act between the seconds, interrupting someone’s intentions and moving faster than anything.

Move yourself and your allies across countless miles in hours or minutes.

Add +10 to a roll involving running or acting as a herd.

Sheep

The holy reason for this manuscript. Here is what is known about sheep:

They are superior to most animals because they provide food, milk, wool, and a ride (if they are big enough).

They understand human speech but they do not deign to speak it.

They worship all gods, so through honoring them, we honor all gods too.

Their mouths are mortars, their teeth are pestles, and their stomachs are ovens, so their wool will take on the properties of what they eat. Pine cones make it warmer, juniper lets air flow through, and duckweed makes it water-resistant.

Goats are a kind of sheep with particular devotion to the gods of salt and metal.

Alpacas are a kind of sheep with particular devotion to the gods of sun and sky.

If one can’t have children, it is often said that one should raise sheep.

New Rune: Sheep/Goat

Walk up a wall or cliff.

Chew through two inches of any material.

Add +10 to a roll involving blending in with others of your kind or discerning the location of a predator.

[howlingday]

Are you able to update the Pokemon Au list thing?

Pokemon Au: Does Coco have a Leavanny or any of its line? Leavanny loves to make clothes. Would Ren have a Poltchageist? Are their any Paradox Pokemon in Renment?

I have updated the list, but I need to figure out how the heck everything fits together. Not everything fits in neatly. Might have to do a whole other page for non-story snips, like Penny and Rotom or the Milo One Piece bit. I'll also need to get the list updated to include their Pokémon.

-----------------------------------------------------

"And... done~!" Coco twirled her seat around to show off her beanie. "How's it look, Letty?"

The Leavanny looked over the stitch with their head tilting this way and that before nodding. Coco smirked at her victory, though it was short-lived when the Pokémon waved their bladed leaf arm. "Lea lea..."

"What? What do you mean it's 'so-so'?!" The Pokemon lifted their arm to their mouth, giving a chuckle at their trainer. "Oh, you think you're being cute? Don't think that just because you're my first doesn't mean I won't take away your treats!"

Unamused, the walking bug hopped from their seat on her desk and took an empty box of treats from the trash. After slicing it into neat pieces, the trash was then sewn together into a much smaller hat. They then hopped onto the desk again and placed the box hat on Coco's head.

"Hmph... You're lucky you're cute." Coco looked in the mirror. "And so's this hat." She stood up and walked away, leaving the beanie on the desk, unaware of the smug smirk her Pokémon had watching as the words 'TREAT' bounced behind her head.

-------------------------------------------

"Mom?"

"Yes, Ren?"

"There's a Pokémon in the cupboard."

"Oh?" Ren's mother quickly walked to her son and looked into cupboard. She clicked her tongue a few times before stepping away. "It looks like a Poltchageist has snuck in." She then took her son's hand. "Come on. Let's go tell your father."

As the two walked away, Ren looked back to the cupboard where the Pokémon shook angrily from inside. The two waited outside until his father returned, but passed the time talking about what Ren found.

"How did you know that was a Pokémon?"

"I don't know." Ren replied. "It just looked like one."

His mother giggled. "Not many people can tell the difference, and it causes problems for them. You're very lucky to be so talented."

Ren smiled at his mother, before he opened his eyes to remember that he wasn't that same boy anymore. Looking to his side, he saw there was a cup of tea sitting on the table by his chair. It'd gone cold, but he'd drink it regardless. No point in wasting good tea.

-------------------------------------------

"I see." Headmaster Ozpin nodded. "It's a shame about Professor Sada and Turo. My condolences to their son, Arven."

"Yes, though their passing is not without some good news." Director Clavell replied. "Thanks to the efforts of their son and our recent Champion, Paldea is safe from a far more concerning fate. In their efforts of studying the Paradox Pokémon, they had inadvertently traveled through time to another era, where they had passed away and left behind a digital copy of their AI, whose intentions were to revert all of Paldea to match the era in which their creator had perished. That is why the Paradox Pokémon are so abundant in Area Zero."

"If they are contained, we no longer need to concern ourselves with any outbreaks beyond Paldea."

"No, no." Clavell replied. "Area Zero and all the Paradox Pokémon contained within are accounted for."

"I see." A smile split from Ozpin's face. "Would you mind sharing the data on these Pokémon? I would love to teach a class about them."

[tennessoui]

If I don't put this out there I'll perish. I need it out of my head -- Tw for mpreg i guess - AU where anakin defeated palpatine but at the cost of his connection to the force - its there but much much weaker now. He still holds sway as Chosen One however, n the feat of killing palpatine is not a small weight to throw around. The senate is in shambles, the Jedi's credibility is not doing much better. They need an out - they need good publicity.

There is a neutral planet that has stayed out of the war by some miracle - wealthy, but not overly so. High resources, but just a respectable amount. Stewjon is ruled by King Qui-Gon Jinn and he is unattached. The opportunity just presents itself. Jedi negotiated the hand of the Chosen One. A trade - the Chosen One for Stewjon's reputation as a steadfast, respectable planet to extend to the Order. Anakin, in all of his exhaustion and jadedness, in all his sadness of losing his connection to the Force, barely made any protest.

And so King Qui-Gon Jinn n Anakin marries.

What no one tells Anakin, is that QG has a beloved mistress. A lady in the lower court - Lady Tahl who he loves and loves him back for years but couldnt marry for her station. Anakin knew he was entering a loveless marriage, but he had hoped they could learn to love each other. If not romantically then as friends. Enough to get by, enough to procure heirs. But his husband is faithful to Lady Tahl and Anakin is the usurper despite wearing QG's ring on his finger.

The court knows why Anakin cant conceive. Its hardly his fault. But hes made an easy target for court ridicule - hes paying for QG's infidelity. QG regrets it, he does. He tries to protect Anakin as best as he can but his best is the bare minimum. Anakin suffers. Already wrung out, hes subdued. Puts in enough attitude to absolove the Order of their guilt when Yoda and Mace checks in. He thinks Plo wants to take him away. He thinks he can feel Luminara's heartbreak in the Force. He ignores them for the Council's sake.

Then the crown prince returns. Crown Prince Obi-Wan, Commander of the City Guards, Protector of the Realm, The Negotiator returns from his interplanetary travels. Obi-Wan has sent his apologies and wedding gifts to his adoptive father and his new husband, all the while praying that GQ would be kind to this Anakin person. Obiwan knows very well how unintentionally hurtful GQ can be, even when hes not wrapped up in Lady Tahl. Obiwan likes Lady Tahl enough - shes kind to him and its a shame that QG and her cannot marry, but still Obiwan prays and hope that his adoptive father would be kind to Anakin.

Well. Looking at the state of the court it was a fanciful thought. Looking at Anakin, though- Obiwan wonders if maybe this is a sign from the gods, from the Force. Because one look at Anakin in Stewjon colours, with the consort diadem on his head, pearls in hair, Obiwan can only think that this is meant to be. This is preordained. Anakin can only be his.

And Anakin, for the first time since he defeated Palpatine, can actually feel the silk touches of the Force at his fingertips. How it whispers in his ears and brush against his sides. But only when he looks at Obiwan. Only when Obiwan touches the back of his hand, when he guides anakin through doors with a hand at the small of his back, when he glides a finger down Anakins arm and slot their hands together. When Obiwan braids his hair and weaves little beads of kyber in between strands, in the mornings after.

When Anakin and QG announces their first pregnancy, the court is shocked. They look at Lady Tahl who looks indifferent, politely clapping with the rest. Theyre puzzled and look at QG whose smile seems genuine enough. Theyre taken aback when they look at the Consort's bright, pleasant smile. At how he glows, utterly radiant, and the name Chosen One makes so much sense now with how the light catches fetchingly in his hair, glinting off little gems weaved in the locks.

So enthralled by the mystery they are that they missed the Crown Prince's cool politeness, smile as empty as his eyes, staring at the his King and Consort on the dais. Eyes only softening when he looks at Anakin, but not too long lest the longing and yearning shows. He wonders, quietly, treacherously, how long it would take to gather supporters. How difficult it would be to back QG into a corner then throw him a lifeline - to be able to marry Tahl and live a quiet life.

Or converse to that, how difficult it would be to back certain figures into a corner. Manipulate and deceive all that QG and Anakins marriage is a mistake. That Lady Tahl was the right choice after all. That she has distant relations in other systems that would be more beneficial to the Stewjonians than an Order without teeth. Perhaps, to keep the agreement still in place my technicality alone, they could always convince the Crown Prince to marry the deposed Consort.

Obiwan schemes and schemes - theres no telling which one he chooses, but it always ends with him and Anakin together, with their children for years and years till death do them part.

[That's it - thanks, I really needed that out of my head. Hope you like.]

ooo I love a political intrigue! Publishing so other people can read :> what a journey! You should definitely write this plot bunny it sounds delectable! I love an au where a relationship is presumed without much of an actual relationship existing—it restrains one character while the other character is left confused (if the presumed relationship isn’t public)

also there’s never enough stories playing with the Jedi order as a planet or system of its own and arranged marriage will always be chefs kiss😍

[buckybarnesss]

laura hale: darling, dearest, dead

welcome to where i care way too much about teen wolf in the year 2023.

i have no shame.

i've been working on this meta for a few weeks now and it’s definitely grown past its original scope. at first, i just wanted to do a deep dive into the weirdness around laura’s death but of course that expanded as i sat down and hashed out my thoughts.

@renninflight 's tags on one of my posts really gave me the push for this because i've apparently just been waiting for the opportunity to talk about the mysterious murder of laura hale

shoutout also to my teen wolf buddy and tumblr mutual of forever @dear-massacre our teen wolf talks definitely helped, probably wormed their way in here and this wouldn’t have existed without you.

laura's death is the core mystery of the first season and i’ve always been intrigued by the circumstances surrounding it.

i’m definitely not the first to question the circumstances surrounding laura’s death but i’m going to put on my tinfoil conspiracy theory hat and discuss the events just prior to wolf moon and how laura hale haunts me the narrative.

buckle up buttercups this is long.

just to get this out of the way immediately, i need you to understand that teen wolf's plots and timeline were apparently written on a soggy napkin found crumbled up under the seat cushion of jeff davis's couch. season 1's story is the most cohesive but there wasn't a show bible for a long time, which explains its loose relationship with keeping consistent canon. this post on the teen wolf wiki from september 2013 says explicitly that some assistant was tasked with writing one. this would've placed it after 3a had aired but before 3b did. 

while i won’t be digging into the teen wolf timeline here, i will be working from my own understanding of it.

a lot of teen wolf is left to implication, inference and subtext as we the audience are locked into scott mccall's point of view and his knowledge of what's happening. this allows for scott to be ignorant about the world he unwittingly and unwillingly enters so that information can be doled out at a steady drip and the mysteries heightened.

that said, onwards to what has become my teen wolf magnum opus.

introduction: the dead girl

laura hale is the ultimate dead girl trope in teen wolf which is a show littered with the corpses of dead girls. it makes sense of course when you know she is the narrative sister of laura palmer of twin peaks fame. 

unlike laura palmer though, laura hale never gets to tell her story. she is dead before the show begins.her corpse is treated cavalierly by scott and stiles, desecrated by the argents and stripped of her personhood.

interestingly, david lynch’s daughter jennifer lynch not only a authored a spin off novel for twin peaks told from laura palmer’s perspective called the secret diary of laura palmer but also directed four episodes of teen wolf (silverfinger, i.e.d, perishable and codominance). 

it's a cool connection.

i like this quote from esquire about laura palmer and the creation of the dead girl trope:

“we don't see laura with any control over her circumstances. we meet her after she's been wrapped in a plastic bag and left to rot, which essentially leaves her narrative and legacy to be largely determined by those who are investigating her. we don't learn about laura through laura—we learn about laura by piecing together what she left behind.” 

laura hale’s murder also invokes a visual similarity to a real life beautiful dead girl as well.

elizabeth short.

elizabeth short is known to history as the black dahlia. her naked, posed, and bisected corpse was discovered in a vacant lot in january 1947. she was 22 years old. 

when betty bersinger discovered elizabeth that morning she thought she’d stumbled upon a mannequin. in a way, she had. the person elizabeth short was is often lost amongst the sensationalized headlines, salacious gossip and speculation surrounding her case. instead, she has become the perfect, posable victim unable to tell her own story.

elizabeth short is the template for all the dead girls in modern media. 

what makes laura hale different though is how she’s a non-character within teen wolf despite her death’s significance as the unpreventable, fixed event within the show’s universe.

laura hale has the most in common with the other dead beautiful girls erica reyes and paige krasikeva. each of them killed before their full potential could be realized their ghosts left to haunt the narrative.

as i said earlier though, the circumstances surrounding her death have always intrigued me. i’ve always believed there was a sort of convergence of events happening prior to wolf moon that led to the inciting incident of laura hale's murder. 

we’re even told this throughout the show if you’re paying attention. 

one of the things i always wished we’d gotten from teen wolf was more information about not just laura herself but what exactly she knew prior to her death but we can infer quite a bit. 

let’s take a look at what we do know.

a history lesson: drinking poison from the same vine

to understand what happened to laura hale when she was killed we have to step back and look at what happened before the first scenes of the show. 

in particular we have to take a look at peter hale, the argents and the alpha pack. this means revisiting visionary among some other relevant episodes.

visionary is probably one of if not the most central lore episode within the series and it also gives us a glimpse of both talia and laura hale while they were still alive.

laura herself is more of an afterthought in this episode as she's never named on screen. 

so what does visionary tell us about laura?

it tells us that she was already in a leadership position within the hale pack by this time and is clearly put forth as talia's natural, intended successor due to her very presence at the summit. it also tells us kali, ennis and deucalion knew laura hale personally even if it was a fleeting acquaintance. 

in the finer details of the episode we learn a few other things such as talia, laura and peter were all aware of the threat of the argents. we learn one of ennis’s betas was killed in retaliation for killing two hunters. the death of the beta seems very cruel and unusual as we learn that he was shot through the throat, his claws were ripped out and he was cut in half. 

the last point in particular is notable as there’s only one hunter we know of that cuts werewolves in half. 

gerard argent.

motel california is just a few episodes prior to visionary where it’s revealed that alexander argent killed himself in 1977 at the glen capri motel after being bitten. gerard claims it was deucalion that bit his brother which is how he justifies his actions in visionary.

is it the full truth? doubtful. maybe alexander argent was bitten by deucalion and maybe he wasn’t but gerard seems to believe he was and that is what matters. 

belief in the teen wolf universe is a real, tangible concept but it’s incredibly important to the narrative conceit of this episode. gerard and peter are both unreliable narrators who purposefully minimize their roles in the stories they tell. maybe they even believe their own lies to a degree.

what we know as the audience as it’s proven multiple times throughout the series is that gerard rejects the idea of peace and is known for being brutal and cruel in his methods. 

visionary also goes a long way to illustrate that peter hale has always been, you know, Like That. he skulks around the story even in his own version of events where he’s trying to minimize his own role in paige’s death.

i believe that the non-existence of laura in his story except for a throwaway mention about how laura told derek about the packs being in town is two fold. one, peter was jealous of laura’s position in the pack and two, his guilt over killing her. 

peter’s guilt is an interesting thing because he is first and foremost all about the survival of peter hale but he does care about those he perceives as his. for him, killing laura was something he regretted but was necessary so that peter could gain the alpha power. 

laura was a sacrifice. 

another thing about visionary is the absence of peter and talia’s relationship but who else would’ve told her about derek and what happened? talia isn’t surprised when she finds derek in the cellar. 

over the course of the show we do not get a lot about talia and peter’s relationship which is a thing that keeps me up at night but i don’t think it’s too far of a leap to conclude that talia knew her brother’s nature and probably saw it as useful in it’s own way so long as she was the one holding the leash. the way peter advises derek is probably not too far off from how he advised talia. 

there’s a tiny glimpse of this in season 4’s monstrous.

meredith walker is subjected to peter’s inner ravings while he’s comatose as they somehow connected mental frequencies.

there’s parts in there about how he’ll be a vengeful god and remake the supernatural of beacon hills in his own image and blah blah blah it all tracks for peter but the parts about talia are interesting not only because it gives us a glimpse into how peter perceived talia but also because he specifically name drops the argents as the threat. 

is it the full truth? no. peter subscribes to the from-a-certain-point-of-view version of the truth and we have to remember this is peter just after the fire. he’s comatose, horrifically injured and on some level he’s aware that most of his family is now deceased.

what looking at this gives us is peter’s perspective and what he latched onto post-fire thus creating the peter we meet.

“i predicted this. i told talia this was going to happen. something like this was going to happen. i said they were going to come for us. the argents. they’re going to come for us. they’re gonna burn us to the ground. they’re going to burn us to the ground. did she listen? of course not. did anyone listen? they listened to her. yes! say that everything was going to be fine. that we were all perfectly safe. but she made us weak! she made us weak. and what happens to the weakest in the herd? they get picked off by the predators. we used to be the apex predators. until talia turned us into sheep.”     

there is another key point about talia and peter that i think cannot be overlooked. the removal of memories. she took the memory of the nemeton’s location from both him and derek after their experiences there and she also took the memory of his tryst with corrine that resulted in malia’s birth. 

i think what these things together tell us is that peter hale is vengeful and resentful but not just towards the argents but also talia but talia is beyond his reach. laura isn’t.

the last player that needs to be examined is the alpha pack. visionary gives us a version of events of why deucalion is the way he is and it ends with him killing his beta marco absorbing his power. this in itself isn’t actually all that interesting as this was the foregone conclusion. 

when you combine it with what jennifer tells derek in the overlooked though it was just a few months after this she is attacked by kali at the base of the nemeton, which means the creation of the alpha pack was already underway mere weeks after deucalion is blinded by gerard.

we know talia hale was aware of what happened to deucalion along with gerard argent’s involvement so it would also stand to reason she would then be aware of the creation of the alpha pack. i cannot imagine it would escape her notice that both ennis and kali’s packs were decimated by their alphas and then they joined with deucalion. that seems like a cataclysmic event that’d get through the supernatural grapevine quickly. 

if talia knew then so did laura as she was like i said clearly talia’s successor.

the mysterious death of laura hale part I: who cut laura in half?

let’s revisit the scene of the crime to examine the absolutely hinky circumstances surrounding laura's death and what the hell was happening in the woods the night scott was bitten by peter.

if i learned anything from gil grissom the first piece of evidence is the body. this is how we and scott meet laura hale.

i don’t think it’s speculation to say that peter hale killed laura but it was gerard argent who cut her in half. 

in the season 2 opening episode omega we meet gerard argent and learn of his propensity to use a broadsword to cut werewolves in half but it is chris that gives scott the warning.

chris: "scott do you know what a hemicorporectomy is?"

scott: "i have a feeling i don't want to."

chris: "a medical term for amputating somebody at the waist. cutting them in half. takes a tremendous amount of strength to cut through tissue and bone like that."

this foreshadows what happens to the omega at the end of the episode but it reminds the viewer that we’ve already seen a corpse like that.

it may be a drop in the bucket compared to all the trauma scott has experienced since that night but i don’t think laura’s severed corpse is a sight he’s forgotten. which is what i believe argent is counting on here.

he knows what his father did. 

he’s intimidating scott as much as he’s warning him not just about lydia but also about his father’s impending arrival and what gerard is capable of. 

by this point chris knows kate broke the code by killing the hales in such a gruesome fashion but what does kate say when chris confronts her in code breaker?

chris: “i know what you did.”

kate: “i did what i was told to do.”

gee, i wonder who gave kate the carte blanche on killing the hales? i bet he also used paige’s death as a way to manipulate her as we see him do with allison. he was in town after all when paige was attacked by ennis and subsequently died. it's not a stretch to believe that a seasoned hunter like gerard would be able to spot a supernatural death cover up via animal attack.

the argents talk a big game about their women being leaders but gerard is the puppet master tugging on kate’s strings just like he did allison’s in season 2. this doesn’t minimize kate’s own sociopathy. kate can be a victim and a perpetrator.

we know from visionary that the argents have been known to operate around the beacon hills area to hunt but they don’t live there until chris and his family move there just prior to wolf moon.

i think we can infer that gerard ordered chris to move to beacon hills in response to laura hale being back in the area for the first time since the fire and i don’t think he aimed to just keep an eye on her.

there’s another overlooked aspect as to why gerard would be very interested in laura hale. he wants to cure his cancer via the bite. in fact, i wouldn’t be surprised if he would have offered her kate in exchange for the bite. 

sure, it’s speculative, but i think there are enough pieces to support it as a working theory.

unlike peter there is never a confession from gerard about his part in the crime so why am i certain he did it?

let’s go back to the body for a moment.

while there’s a lot of gore, most of the blood is on laura herself. 

there’s a significant lack of blood either around or underneath laura. with the amount of trauma we can see on her body there should be a bloody mess but there isn’t.

also notice how her arms are splayed out. it’s like she was dropped there.

she also doesn’t appear to be all that decayed so she’s still pretty, uh, fresh.

so again why do i believe gerard cut her in half if peter killed her?

not only can we infer in the subtext from the conversation chris has with scott in omega but looking at the cut on laura’s body it is too clean to be from being ripped in half by an animal or a werecreature. 

however, a person with a sharp, heavy sword with the know-how that we know does this? seems a bit more plausible doesn’t it?

also kate literally tells us that hunters did it. she doesn’t name gerard but she informs derek in the tell: 

��yes, your sister was severed into pieces and used as bait to catch you. unpleasant, and frankly a little too texas chainsaw massacre for my taste, but quite true. but here’s the part that’s really going to kick you in the balls. we didn’t kill her.”

neither the audience nor derek know if kate can be believed. i don’t think she’s lying here. she’s taunting but not lying.

why lie when she knows how badly this knowledge will hurt derek?

she goes on to add:

“found bite marks on your sister’s body derek. what do you think did that? a mountain lion?”

this i believe was a fib. were there bite marks? possibly, but more likely from savangers than peter taking a bite out of laura.

also the fact that laura’s lower half was found by joggers probably means it was visible from a path which gives some credibility to the idea that the hunter's strew laura’s corpse around the preserve. they wanted it to be found.

not only would two pieces be less heavy than a whole body but it just shows how they don’t care. laura isn’t a person to them. she’s vermin, she’s subhuman, she’s not worthy of respect. 

she’s no better than bait to other werewolves to them. 

they leave laura to rot.

notice how kate never refers to laura by name instead calling her “your sister” to derek. kate lured derek out with insults towards laura but this one is the greatest of them all. kate is refusing laura hale’s personhood.

the final reason i don’t believe peter tore laura in half is we’ve seen how peter kills. claws from behind are consistent with how he goes at derek at the end of heart monitor and jackson in master plan or throat slashing which we see in the tell with the video store clerk, kate in code breaker and jennifer in lunar eclipse. 

or he mauls them viscerally like we see with the mute in the benefactor.

a creature of habit he calls himself.

in none of peter’s kills either as alpha or as a beta does he tear someone in half.

while peter hale is a dramatic king and doesn’t mind getting his hands bloody, i think he’d be offended if someone accused him of tearing laura in half. 

the mysterious death of laura hale II: why does peter kill laura?

speaking of peter, why did he kill laura?

the obvious answer is for the alpha power so he could fully heal..he says as much in wolf’s bane.

peter: “yes, becoming an alpha, taking that from laura pushed me over a plateau in the healing process.”

but with peter hale nothing is ever so simple. there’s always layers.

in alpha pact, peter gives derek this speech when he’s winding derek up about how to heal cora:

“you know, normal wolves never abandon an injured member of the pack. they care for it. they even bring it food from a kill and then regurgitate it into the mouth of the injured wolf. they even give it physical and emotional comfort by intensely grooming it. in a way they can do more than just ease pain. they can be instrumental in healing their own."

as i mentioned earlier, i think peter not only holds a lot of resentment towards talia for what he perceived as inaction but also towards laura.

after the fire, laura did what cora says in visionary they were taught to do when hunters find them.

cora: "waiting. hiding. that's what we're told to do when the hunters find us. hide and heal."

in all the trauma and grief, laura did the only thing that she could reasonably do in response to such a horrific tragedy. she packed up her little brother who she’d suddenly become the guardian of and put an entire continent between them and beacon hills.

in doing so she left behind peter. i don’t blame her for leaving beacon hills. she was reacting to the threat of the hunters by trying to protect what little was left of her family and herself.

you have to put on your own oxygen mask before you can help others.

however, in leaving peter behind he was left to not only slowly go mad but he was also left vulnerable.

peter may have felt laura not only abandoned him as a member of the pack but abdicated her right to be the alpha.

derek tells scott in riddled:

“my family didn’t just live in beacon hills.they protected it.”

laura left beacon hills unprotected and she left peter alone. 

peter killed laura for the alpha power he always saw as rightfully his so he could heal and do the job he felt talia and laura were both too weak to do. 

while peter killed laura his culpability does come into question. 

in co-captain he performs the memory sharing ritual with scott which gives us a small glimpse of peter’s memories in the moments before laura’s death.

laura enters the scene looking around as if she hears something and then laura calls out his name in question. when peter turns he doesn’t look like a man in control with his eyes rolling, mouth agape. 

his actions look autonomous. peter the man is not at the wheel. 

if we take what peter says in wolf’s bane at face value about how he was being driven by pure instinct then we can surmise that the wolf was in control and acted on impulse and peter’s deepest thoughts and desires. 

the same ones we hear peter raving and ranting at meredith in monstrous. 

vengeance. 

i think the truth seems to be somewhere in the middle. 

peter often downplays his own involvement as a manipulation tactic. so while he lacked inhibition, killing laura for the alpha power was premeditated as we know his nurse was acting on his behalf. i do wonder though if laura’s body hadn’t been severed by hunters would peter have resurrected her? 

what’s a little murder between family members, you know? 

the mysterious death of laura hale III: the conspiracy

there are two conspiracies in season 1.

the conspiracy to kill the hales and the conspiracy to lure laura hale back to beacon hills.

about three months before her death laura was sent the picture of the revenge spiral on the deer which brought her back to beacon hills. to the territory she had left unattended for six years. in pack mentality, derek says that laura came back to beacon hills looking for the alpha and that she told him she was close to figuring something out about the fire. 

luring laura back to beacon hills wasn’t just about killing her. that was the endgame, but first peter needed her to do the leg work in finding the conspirators that set the fire.

the conspiracy itself hinges on one person since peter was still unable to do all of it himself due to him still recovering and we know nothing about her.

nurse jennifer plagues me. her motivations for helping peter were never given. she’s merely a tool to help peter enact his revenge.

all we have are theories and i have found precious few in my searches through old meta.

the most popular theory and i use that word loosely is that she was jennifer blake sowing the seeds for her eventual return to take on the alpha pack. i’ve considered this one and i think a skilled writer could make it work, but within the context we’re given i don’t think so. 

i do believe jennifer blake definitely scouted out beacon hills just as the alpha pack did but i don’t think she and nurse jennifer are one in the same. besides, we do see nurse jennifer’s corpse in code breaker. 

another theory i came across was that she’s a banshee compelled in the same way lydia was by peter. again because we have such little information there���s enough room for it to be possible but i doubt it. 

the conclusion i have come to about nurse jennifer is that she’s someone like dr. fenris and brunski from eichen house. while we do not learn about eichen house until season 3b dr fenris is introduced in wolf’s bane and is in the search for a cure. 

mostly, i think she’s simply a reference to nurse ratched from one flew over the cuckoo’s nest. her nurse's uniform is even anachronistic. 

but what was nurse jennifer’s role in the conspiracy?

she is the one who sent the picture of the deer spiral to laura hale to spur her to come back to beacon hills. nurse jennifer is also the one who sent allison the text to come to the school during night school. like laura, nurse jennifer did a lot of footwork for peter to make his plans work and it’s a damn shame we’ll never know why.

the mysterious death of laura hale iv:  the fixed point

laura’s death is what i think of as a fixed point in the universe of teen wolf. the idea of which is something i shamelessly took from doctor who.

in doctor who a fixed point is considered a lynchpin of the structure of ordered history. they cannot be altered as any attempts to do so would unravel linear time. 

laura hale’s death is that fixed point. it was unavoidable, unpreventable. poor laura hale doomed by the narrative.

in the events surrounding the murder of laura hale there are two more players i haven’t really discussed. they exist on the periphery but are no less important. 

doctor alan deaton and the nemeton.

cora says this in visionary:

"they keep us connected to humanity but they're a secret even within the pack. sometimes only the alpha knows who the emissary is. derek and i had no idea about deaton."

as talia’s successor laura would’ve had to know who their pack’s emissary was.

this is confirmed in fury when deaton not only insults derek to his face but reveals that he made a promise to talia to help her children and derek recalls laura mentioning deaton indirectly as some kind of advisor. 

i say indirectly because if laura had told derek explicitly that deaton was someone who could help and advise than he wouldn’t have suspected him as the alpha in season 1. 

did laura see deaton at all during her time in beacon hills? i would say it’s probable but i get the impression laura played her cards close to her chest. deaton was very unnerved by what was happening and with laura’s death probably concerned for his own wellbeing. 

deaton doesn’t reveal himself to derek because he has no idea if derek’s the one who killed laura or not. there’s no established relationship between the two for trust to go either way. 

truly the greatest villain of teen wolf is miscommunication, but i digress.

now here comes the part where i put on my tin foil conspiracy theory hat. i believe laura was killed near or at the nemeton. 

an unintended and unacknowledged sacrifice.

peter may not have consciously remembered its location, but who's to say it didn’t draw him there. 

we know from jennifer’s speech in the overlooked that the nemeton had a small spark of power from paige’s death. it was enough power to keep her alive after kali left her for dead so it isn’t difficult to believe it could’ve drawn peter to it as well. 

we know gerard knows its location despite what he tells allison about him not remembering. i don’t believe that geriatric bastard anymore than i believe peter as peter is able to find the nemeton easy enough because he shows up to kill jennifer there.

now, i have zero proof of this. it’s all speculation from vibes and what we see in lunar eclipse but considering laura’s body was moved from wherever she originally died and was severed it’s possible. 

it’s easy to imagine a scenario where laura finds peter at the nemeton where he kills her and leaves her body where it fell. later, gerard and his hunters discover her corpse and in frustration and anger at his plan falling through, gerard decides to use laura as bait for either the werewolf that killed her, derek or whatever other werewolves come along. waste not, want not after all. 

either way an alpha’s blood is spilled there giving the nemeton just a little bit more power. 

in lunar eclipse allison, scott and stiles perform a proxy ritual sacrifice to find out the location of the nemeton so they can rescue their parents. it’s successful, but only because the nemeton allows them to know its location. 

in revealing itself to them it chooses them as its champions and.it’s magic takes them back to the night scott was bitten, to the fixed point in the teen wolf universe. 

laura hale’s death.

haunting the narrative: laura hale’s uneasy ghost

“and so, the woman dies. the woman dies so the man can be sad about it. the woman dies so the man can suffer. she dies to give him a destiny. dies so he can fall to the dark side. dies so he can lament her death. as he stands there, brimming with grief, brimming with life, the woman lies there in silence.”

by aoko matsuda, translated by polly barton

once the first season comes to a close and laura hale’s murder is solved she is no longer mentioned save a few precious times, but the ghost of laura lingers. 

laura haunts the narrative.

derek has forgiven many transgressions against himself and his person but he will never forgive peter for laura’s murder. her death underscores every single one of their interactions.

laura’s the specter that hangs between cora and derek. cora loses her sister twice and derek’s words “sorry to disappoint you” only speak to how he feels he cannot live up to the ghost of not only his mother but also laura.

this, however, is not the only way laura remains in the narrative. they allude to her in other ways. 

in anchors scott reprises the scene from wolf moon where he tells stiles they’re going to go out into the woods to find a dead body but in a reverse uno of wolf moon though, scott is able to save the naked hale girl in the woods and bring her back to her family.

at the beginning of party guessed, lydia has one of her banshee visions. if you pay attention you can catch a girl in the bleachers that doesn’t quite belong. in fact, she’s crying out distressed and frightened.

that girl is laura hale. 

while uncredited the actress looks a lot like haley roe murphy who played laura in the first season and the necklace around her neck has a red pendant that alludes to her alpha status.

lydia sees an echo of laura hale as a warning.

i like this shot in second chance at first line when scott is at the morgue. he pulls out the drawer containing laura's lower half and the pov for the shot is almost like laura is watching despite her upper half not being there.

the very last time we see laura’s body is after stiles and scott dig it up. 

from this new perspective, laura’s stare has gone from vacant to accusatory.

it’s a jump scare, the transition from laura as a wolf to laura as human. it’s meant to freak stiles and scott out and confuse them. 

what it’s always said to me though is how dare you.

whether or not it was intentional (and let’s be real this is teen wolf so it’s probably half and half if we’re being generous)  the murder of laura remains one of the most intriguing incidents on teen wolf and her being one of the most untapped characters.

i said earlier i wanted to know what laura knew before her death. what had she uncovered about the fire? had she learned about cora being alive? did she know about kate and derek?

the answer is that it doesn’t matter. It no longer matters because laura died. we can never know what she knew. 

in teen wolf it doesn’t matter because laura is a non-character while being the most important character of them all.

laura hale is the beautiful dead girl.

she is the inciting incident, the fixed point, the name unsaid and the spirit unexercised.

“an anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young-- a dirge for her the doubly dead in that she died so young.”  lenore by edgar allen poe

[marengogo]

6 : “Happy Singles Day! …” Mistakenly Thought Marengo

Listening to a Love Wins All x BTS love songs playlist 

[Music is a very big part of my life and I’m MOSTLY INCAPABLE of writing without music, so I just thought I'd share what I am listening to while writing this]

–🐺–🐺–🐺–

Hello my dearest Gurls, Bois, Enbys and everyone in-between 💜 and

HAPPY SINGLES DAY!

… not.

Singles day is actually November 11, as in 11/11, as in 1 - 1 - 1 - 1, as in single, single, single and; SINGLE. LONG TIME AGO, a very young-uni-student-Marengo, somehow, mistakenly read today to be singles day, but in fact today is Singles Awareness Day 🤡LOL. So the joke is on me, but matter 👏🏾 does 👏🏾 not 👏🏾! Marengo shall privately keep celebrating Singles Day on the 15th of February because every time she had, she did on today’s date. Granted, I hadn’t had to celebrate it for a long-long minute, but … here I am in 2024.

Granted I’m a bit rusty but, what I always used to do, without fail was:

Buy Salted Caramel & Rose macarons from Pierre Marcolini

Buy a very expensive bottle of red wine

Watch Magic Mike XXL

Haven’t got around watching Magic Mike XXL yet as I’m here writing to you all duh, but here is a picture of the first 2 points.

The bottle didn't come with that neck piece, I put that there because you could see me in the reflection; don't mess with my camera game! 😎

So before anybody starts, I’m not celebrating today because I’m bitter at people who are in love or a couple. I might have been, A LONG TIME AGO, when I started celebrating this day, but as I grew up, it became more of a luxurious and pampering habit, particularly once I realised, and gradually understood, just how beautiful love actually is. And then, when it became my time to experience it 🎊🎉🪄, yeah … LOVE IS A BEAUTIFUL THING. In fact, I actually love LOVE. I love watching people fall in love, I love just the feeling of love itself, you could even say that I love the thought of a love potential, just as much as I love the potential of a love thought … 😜.

But just like a beautiful rose, love can hurt, no matter how careful, unexpected/unseen thorns can still get you. Yet, you shouldn't hate the rose, right? “I gotta be more careful …” that should be the brains immediate reaction, but sometimes, the amygdala works real hard, with unpaid overtime, keeping us away from roses until we figure out how to better tackle them, and some other times, it just makes us give up on roses entirely, which is a shame but it is what it is sometimes, because roses are really so so so precious, no matter what your favourite flower might happen to be. My favourite flowers are Forget-me-nots, but I will never deny the charm of a rose and I’ve learned to not hate them through time, even when, or even though, I might be deadass afraid of them.

Falling in love is like deciding to take care of your own personal rose/s. You will naturally like many different flowers and will naturally nurture them, rightfully so. Yet, at the same time, there might come a time when you’ll desire to also cherish in having a rose. Some might want roses to boast at their beauty, some simply like a challenge, but all in all, for many, if they could only manage to take care of even just one singular rose, for as long as they possibly can, without it dying; they’d consider it a great achievement and I'd agree. Roses don’t smell like boo-boo, but without LEC (Love, Effort and Care) they are indeed hard to keep, and will quickly perish.

… So what does this have to do with Singles / Singles Awareness Day?! Bitch you are making me feel much worse than before! Like STFU FR. There is a reason why I watch Magic Mike XXL. I really don’t give two shits about the first magic Mike, like I don’t even remember it. Yet XXL ⚠️SPOILER ALERT⚠️ Has as a main plot the main character not ending with whom he thought was the love of his life, right from the start, and instead discovering the value of having a solid community and believing in one’s self ⚠️ END OF SPOILER ⚠️ helps me remind myself that if I am unable to find a rose to take care of, or if I am not ready to do so either, I should remember that I myself am a rose and I should treat myself as such; with love, effort and care.

So today isn't a day where I hate those who have found and are bravely keeping love. No. Today is a day where I think of what could be, mourn what could have been and remember that the me of now also deserves love in the form of macrons, expensive wine and a feel good movie. So if you are single, have been for a while, or always have been, try not to obsess over having that garden of roses. Take care of your flowers first, make sure they are healthy! I’ve neglected “my forget-me-nots” for a bit too long now, so I have some cathcin gup to do, and don’t forget you are a rose yourself; take good care of yourself, be kind to yourself; love yourself. 

Always respectfully yours,

Marengo

@ejassy @chikooritajjk @stormblessed95 Thank you so much and I love you, my unique flowers.

[helluva-world-innit]

So...they are finally here...the height charts! At least of the main Hazbin Crew (bonus Mimzy; idk about Baxter yet). These are the final designs for me but, as I improve my art skills, I may change some things around I couldn't accomplish when I first started drawing them.

I will do actual character ref pages at some point now that I have their designs (mostly) finalized. I still wanna tweak them a little, ngl, but that will have to wait until I draw them a few more times (and probs after I do the height charts for the Helluva Crew too; everyone else will be sporadic af).

Anyway, since I got a flight soon and can't sleep, let's talk about some of the changes I made for everyone as well as how they got to be where they are now, hm? Sidenote: I have decided the events of this story will take place in 2052 for...reasons. Sidenote sidenote: I went with the original Sin colors for the Rings so Wrath is red, not Pride. Greed is gold, etc., etc.

So, Charlie (Charlotte Lucinda Isadoros) Morningstar has more texture in her hair this time around and I made the stitches on her coat obvious just because I thought it looked more slapdash that way. She's slim to the point of not really having much of a figure (much like her father; they are almost copies of each other but it's because he really didn't use anyone else's "genes" for her) so she gave her coat a little bit of shape to the hips but she still largely wears more masculine clothing. Like most of her extended family, Charlie isn't too hung up on being perceived as strictly male or strictly female, though her title is Crown Princess of Hell (Luci just thinks it sounds cuter, but Charlie doesn't object to people naming her as Crown Prince of Hell either). Age: 222

I already kind of did a rundown for her deal earlier on this blog so lets move on to...

Vanessa Chavez Hernandez Fell into the vicious Ring of Wrath upon her death during the Salvadoran Civil War in 1986. Fun fact: She and Alastor are some of the only Sinners that go by their given names. Everyone else's name tends to be a chosen one. Vannie died fighting on the side of the Farbundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN). She was caught and killed with so much (understandable) rage inside that it led to her dropping into Wrath Ring. US soldiers killed her peasant farmer parents in cold blood in front of her when she was 14 for the belief they were aiding the Front with weapons. Her father actually was, but her mother was not aware of any of it. As a result, Vannie dedicated her life to killing as many soldiers and government officials as possible instead of leaving for the States with her older sister. She was killed by beheading at the tender age of 20.

Vannie has been devastating her fellow Sinners in combat ever since. All to avoid being taken for torture practice by the bloodthirsty Ringmaster, Satan, should she lose a fight. Most of the armor pieces she wears are handed down from other fallen warriors, bequeathed to her or surrendered upon her victory. I originally wanted to base her on a Death's-Head Hawkmoth but decided to go with a Banded Skipper moth instead (we don't gotta be that edgy here now). They tend to have quick, skip-like movements and Vannie is very agile to make up for her small stature.

Vannie is very level-headed usually, but when her eyepatch comes off, Blind Rage takes hold and she will not lose focus on a target until they stop moving or perish. She was captured and sold as fodder for the arena, à la Thor in Thor: Ragnarok, and, she quickly grew into a crowd (and Satan) favorite. Joins up with Charlie after being liberated for the rehab project. The fact that Charlie's really cute and has a pout that can put puppies to shame probs had a hand in that decision.

Cherry Bomb! The gal, the legend, the agent of unrestrained chaos. A Brisbane native, Cherry fell to Gluttony in 1987 when punk was dying down, but "be gay, do crimes" was still more than an empty slogan. She got blown up while attempting to steal some food from a grocery store, and, like the cockroach she is, she got back on her two four feet in Hell and stole directly from Beezlebub's gardens instead.

I decided to make her look more diy punk and gave her a mullet. Why? Bitches love mullets is why. And Cherry is very much a lover of the bitches. Based her on a Giant Burrowing Cockroach too, which burrows, as its name suggests. This makes Cherry hella good at tunnels and underground infiltration but she also has a knowledge of how to build explosives as well from her time hanging with her more reckless, anarchist buds back on Earth. Her father (he's become an informant and dealer in Hell), regularly threatens her and Angel to get her to build and develop new ways to take out his competition in Greed (including even Moxxie's father). She was just about 28 when she died.

Since we're going in Ring order here, Sir Pentious is next. This cordial king cobra slithered down to Greed Ring in 1888 (aged 30) after his ambition cost him everything: his inheritance, his family, and ultimately, his life. At age 15, Sir Pen had had enough of just reading about machinery and decided to begin building some of his own. Upon entering a late puberty, this became harder for him to pursue with the pressures of high society barreling at him at full speed (he's trans). Sir Pen often disguised himself with the help of his younger sister and brother and attended engineering presentations and operation theaters despite his gender assignment at birth keeping him from formal training in engineering. The open disdain his parents showed for his inventive spirit and lack of feminine graces led to him becoming more withdrawn and abrasive to would be suitors. By age 22, no man in the county wanted anything to do with the seventh-born, obsessive, outwardly sexless child of the Lord and Lady Edwards of Dacorum, England.

Dejected by the steadily increasing hostility towards him from his family and fellow aristocrats, Sir Pen's own resentment grew and he retreated to the family summer home to begin developing an easier and painless method for removing "damaged" body parts (because of his own untreated body dysphoria) on the battlefield. Unfortunately, he used members of his own household staff to test it on. He was labelled as insane and was due to be moved to a private asylum owned by a distant cousin, but opted to take his own life instead of staying trapped in a cage of society's making anymore. Sir Pen now spends his days in Hell building various contraptions to help him one day compete in the Circus Games. He aims to win the title and position of Overseer to reclaim some of his old glory. Left him a snake because honestly, lookit him. Baby noodle. Also snakes tend to symbolize betrayal and untrustworthiness in Christian folklore so it fits him well enough.

Nifty is based on a skunk cleaner shrimp (look them up, they're super cute and also known as 'Doctor shrimps' >///<) and fell into Envy for similar reasons to SP. Three shitty husbands led Nifty to have a psychological break. She ended up killing them then turning the gun on herself in her grief after witnessing her final husband's infidelity in 1954 at age 33. I made her a cleaner shrimp since she is the maid/cook of the hotel, more or less, but also tends to clean up any of the messes she, Alastor, and Husk make (they eat people together! Isn't that...sweet?) Gave a bigger version of her to see since I made her so leetle.

Growing up poor in 1920's-30's Korea as the daughter of a Japanese soldier and a Korean sex worker with three younger siblings and lots of local children to look after, Nifty developed an early sense of caretaking and the desire for comfort in the ways of a well-kept home and delicious food (when it could be afforded). She married relatively young (17) to better care for her mother as her health declined until her death in 1946.

With trauma from a lifetime of war, poverty, and spousal abuse/neglect, it really is a surprise that she's remained as sweet as she has. At least on the surface. She worked in several restaurants and estates in the Envy's Ring of Influence upon Falling, but never managed to be appreciated no matter how efficient or hospitable she was. In the end, Nifty was approached by and made a deal with Alastor and has happily served him since.

Husk(er), in comparison to his contracted colleague, Nifty, is big, gruff, and a total softie inside despite looking like something out of a Bram Stoker novel. Husk died at the ripe age of 72 (1979) which is no small feat considering the amount of wars and bloody revolutions his home country (Russia) dealt with during his lifetime. A second born son of a Petrograd (St. Petersburg today) baker, Husk lost his older brother in the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 (Husk was 10 years old) and has had a difficult relationship with conflict and faith ever since. Between marrying a woman he didn't love, being an awkward and distant father to their only daughter, and deserting during WWII, Husk has more passive demons than most.

After returning home in 1958 from hiding out in South Korea, he spends the remainder of his life gambling and drinking to forget all he's lost and given up. He died after passing out in the snow and Fell to Sloth Ring where he quickly amassed enough power from siphoning the soul energy of others (through their blood) to compete in the Circus Games. He even won it, but immediately regretted this as Belphagor proved to be too demanding of a Ringmaster for the bat to submit to. Scared, full of remorse, and aching for some comfort in the coldest Ring in Hell (he ran to Pride to escape Bel), he was approached by and made a deal with Alastor and has faithfully served him ever since. I made him a vampire bat because it just seems to fit a lot better than a cat with wings (OG Husk's ears always made me think of a bat anyhoo) and it's a sort of nod to his feeling like a drain on others. He's wearing a security hat because he is the security bat. More on that when we get to it.

Angel Dust is Hell's highest grossing pornstar. Such fame comes at a terrible price, however. Angel died at the age of 32 in 1947 (yes, i aged him down a little) after a jealous lover from a rival mob family gunned him down. Before that, Angel used his body to get information and fuel his drug habits, routinely practicing drag and giving the anti-sodomy laws a workout during his life, much to his family's embarrassment. He really wasn't too upset or surprised upon finding himself in the Lust Ring of Hell even if he wasn't too happy about the form he took (Angel is terrified of spiders). After a couple decades of banging and binging, Angel's family slowly began making their way to Hell as well and reunited to form one of the most powerful Sinner gangs around. He tried rejoining them too, only to be brutally beaten and ejected by his father. Back out on the streets, but no longer interested in just getting by anymore, Angel became the perfect target for a predatory Overseer of Lust: Valentino.

For the last 75 years, Angel has been featured in countless porn media (even audiobooks!) and loaned out to every demon Valentino aims to have connections with. If he hadn't met Cherry and formed a strong friendship with her shortly after her Fall, the spider's soul most likely would have Broken long before Charlie got a hold of him. While Angel actually likes his job and enjoys having something he excels at, being bound to an Overseer is a one-way ticket to being ground down into pure soul energy for Hell's use. I kept him a spider because I genuinely have no issues with him being a spider, but the fact that his original design doesn't look like one gives me the fucking pip. Also, he gets even more spidery later. Also, also, I gave him two gold fangs because they're actually just his fangs coated in gold under Valentino's orders. Anything to make him less dangerous since Angel does have venom sacs. the poison can't kill anyone already dead, obviously, but it is extremely painful and lasts for hours. He can also inject a solution that temporarily paralyzes others instead of causing them agony.

Finally, there's Alastor, the only Overseer of Pride Ring. Bound to the King of Hell, Lucifer himself, Al enjoys the kind of power most Overseers can only dream of. I made him a rabbit (actually a Snowshoe Hare) mostly to get away from a culturally appropriated beast (you know what one, I ain't finna name it) and to actually make him even more aggressively cuddleable. I like characters that defy expectations. Also, I grew up with Bugs Bunny like many of you and I love the idea of Al having Looney Toons-ass ways to deal with problems. Like hole magic. Go ahead and laugh, it's funny.

Al died in 1938 after being sentenced to the death penalty (electric chair). He was caught in one of his many, many murders after one sloppy mistake at 39 years old. He was a modestly famous radio host in his hometown of New Orleans, but only after moving away from the city with his mother and stepfather to Chicago from ages 6 to 17. His mother died when Al was 8 and his stepfather's abuse led to him becoming a skilled and emancipated serial killer by 16 years old. He saved whatever he could from victims to feed himself and put himself through speech classes when he learned that a decent living could be made on the radio for someone so obviously of mixed blood. Alastor moved back to New Orleans to start over and took advantage of the more seedy sides of the city to cover up his hunts until his discovery and capture.

Al Fell to Pride and began exploring and hunting in the other Rings, meeting a fellow entertainer in Gluttony (Vox; died 1955). The pair of them hunted together for close to 25 years when an unknown rift formed between them and both competed to win the title of Overseer in the same year. There can only ever be one Overseer per Circus (Lucifer burns the losers to ash with holy fire to keep them from returning), but Alastor and Vox are the first and last dual winners in the 200+ history of the competition. Vox pledged himself to Beezlebub while Alastor pledged himself to Lucifer and the pair have been bitter rivals ever since.

Bonus: Mimzy is an Overseer of Lust Ring that knows all the hot goss and isn't afraid to share it. She died in the 1920s after being thrown from her then-boyfriend's car in the Bronx and getting run over by a trolley. Your girl has seen it all and then some. Now, she runs one of the slickest clubs and makes her soul quota for Asmodeus with young performers of all kinds. She and Alastor became fast friends upon meeting and she's one of the only people aside from Valentino and Velvette to know what his history with Vox is. She's got a giggle in her talk and a wiggle in her walk and I so based her on that mink girl from Animaniacs as well as a little bit of Toot from Drawn Together (who was loosely based on Betty Boop). I just want her to be soft and sultry. *Jon Lovitz voice* Is that so wrong?

Woo, this got fucking loooooooong. Hopefully, I covered just enough to get y'all interested in what else I have planned for these knuckleheads and I'll be back with the Helluva Main Cast for you next time. Bye!

[icypunkk]

Solo.

She is outsourced, outtrait, and challenges the belief system of results. Though not alone, she feels a little lonely. Her shoulders strained from hours of tightening, her lips parted to release baby breaths, and her blue eyes clouded with a layer of puzzled depth.

It tasted like the second coming of anything—of something she couldn't explain—in her world of wicked decadence. what she truly desired and the leaving nature of what needed to be done. Self-isolation combined with the lovely retribution of fulfilling her career's demands. It was intriguing; the dark-haired beauty frequently pondered whether her line of work was similar to houseplants. Could it perish from lack of care?

'It only makes sense to make no sense at all.' Megan thought as she gazed upon herself in the mirror. Such a shame, this wasn't a Disney film she was doing; she could ask the mirror for help. Then again, what help could one-way glass give the pretty woman?

'Play me?'

Never one to shy away from the ominous side of life. Megan tipped her head like an irritable child, ready for the sky to drop, and traced her fingernail across the envelope. The film "Subservience" explores the story of "When computers can feel love," furious robots, and corrupt AIs. That appeared to be the main idea of the movie's plot. Megan's summary could not have been entirely objective. But could she be held accountable by production?

The stunning actress had been living off the radar for almost three months. With the aid of music and psychedelics, her mind expanded, contracted, and evolved. Megan had been far away from the technology of society, just to return and pretend to be a corrupt one?

'I'll play you to death.' Fox thought, an inching, sinister chuckle echoing from her soft lips. Picking up on the abandoned, strange envelope, the woman allowed herself to become consumed with her next "self."

[][][][][][][][][][]

As Megan lifted the needle on her record player, a single tear sprayed against her crimson face. Janis Joplin's scratchy voice is paused. Naturally, without Megan playing some background music, no script is ever finished and read. Why, though, was she crying? Naturally, the alternative query might be—why not? The modest overstatement would be considered beautiful writing. However, it would be right on many levels; it was written out of fear of emotional dependency.

Megan hummed a shaky breath and twisted a strand of her stringy black hair on her thin finger. She found it difficult to stop crying after she started. Maybe she was still experiencing the emotional breakdown because of the melodious trip of the shrooms.

'Subservience'

Why and for what reason did they desire Megan? Did she resemble an AI? Was she uninteresting? Or was Megan, of all things, viewed by the director as a type A sociopathic? These were all nonsensical questions. Megan rose up from her chair and paced between the record player on the wooden floor and the window in lieu. Could she pull this off? Would she be able to regain that mental state after living apart for so long?

The lovely actress's face curved into another eerie smile, this one tinged with sinister vice. She could play this role. She was able to depict the emotionally hungry, detach, and reattach. All the while, as the unsettling vulture of corruption.

'Play me as a crime, as an object, as a rhyme to a meaningless tune. Take out the script, put in the chip, and play me like a coded version of a love song. Leave me, play with me, remove me like a spell, and you'll crave me again. Play me.'

[plasma-studios]

Miracle Child (ao3: x)

Chapter 2: the aftermath of almost-tragedy

White was the colour of mourning. It was another one of the nameless traditions associated with grief; as if grief had rules to follow, as if to mourn was just another duty. And for the royalty, it was even more so.

The Princess had not been loved by all the populace. Not everyone had the time to fawn over a girl, and not everyone had the ability to come to the christening. What use was there in praise for a girl quite a stranger? Ambivalence would be the kindest outcome.

But then the christening brought strange stories. 

A man of the moon stealing the babe away. The King having made a deal with some inhuman creature for the girl. The Princess having been a changeling, made beautiful by glamour. Some said that the Princess had been born by Fae magic, not the Queen’s womb. That the reward after seventeen years of toil was won out of trickery, not will.

And together, the rumours brought the worst thing that could happen to royalty. They brought shame. 

Now, of course the commonfolk knew of the Fae. Foolish men would barge into the forests known to be Fae-inhabited for glory and power, and desperate women had sought out Fairy circles on more than one occasion. 

It was not too infrequent that a girl or two would show up with jewel-encrusted shoes otherwise unretrievable from the countryside, or a boy to procure some axe that would never get blunt. But countless more had been lost to the Fae in their pursuit.  It was foolish to risk such a thing for a wish or two; even the rare successes were greeted with stony envy, if not disapproval. 

There had been villages razed to the ground for one of their members having offended a Fae in their search, after all. 

So the rumours of the royalty were certainly unpopular— and did nothing for their reputation.

It was to no one’s surprise, then, that there was a funeral held for the Princess not too long after. The girl, it was said, had gone missing. Gone missing the same way undesirable children disappeared from the sight of the public, gone missing the same way royals that damaged the family name beyond repair were exiled to mountains far beyond their walls. 

Such a fate was as good as death. 

So the King and Queen dressed in their purest hues, and the child that had once been so loved was as good as dead to the Kingdom. *** The girl awoke once they broached the borders. Dream felt the weight in his arms shifting, and made to adjust her so she would not tumble right out.

Her white eyes were blinking up at him. Clear and curious, but not quite intent; they were shimmering faintly in the sunlight. Drool was collecting in the corner of her mouth, like a spool of thread. Her eyes were curious, but not quite lucid; ah, a child exhausted was no sweet thing, even if they had just awoken. 

“Mira,” He mused. The shape of the name was wrong, a hollow thing. 

She did not so much as flinch. It was evidently not her True Name. She did make a soft noise, but it could have just been the tail-end of a breath. 

Her hair was coming in. Not a lot, barely any at all, but faint baby hairs were growing in the same shade as her eyes. The same white, or perhaps silver. The iridescent sheen marked her as a child born from a Life Flower. Though she was flesh and blood, wholly human, he was curious if there was any magic left over from the fruit. 

“Shh. Go back to sleep.” She did not seem very excited to fall back asleep. “Sleep, Mira.”

In a few blinks, she was out cold. The command did work, the heat in his throat only gave proof to it, but the name was no more effective than if he’d spoken any other word. No more effective than any other thrall.

“Stars, Blue, you owe me for this.”

It would be easy enough to deny the curse with an enchantment to keep her young forever. But perhaps an infant would be too much trouble. He’d rather have her a little older to save the hassle of raising a babe that could perish so easily. 

Surely, at the very least, a girl slightly older would be a little less fragile. 

Dream touched her cheek. She was still out cold, even if it’d taken a few more seconds to put her back to sleep. 

“If I’m going to call you by a false name,” He mused. “Might as well be a nicer one.”

He traced his fingers along the edge of her jaw, pondering it. “Mira,” he repeated softly, testing the false name. What other names had he heard of her? Miracle child. Beloved daughter. Oh, and little light? He made a considering sound. My little light. The full address came to him, and he pondered it over.

“How about Lux?” He poked her cheek, and she predictably stirred. “Little light. Is that agreeable?”

She let out the tiniest snore. Dream hummed, the half-formed notes of siren song lingering warmly in his throat. Mortal children were much too fragile. Ink had sent a letter detailing all the ways a mortal infant could pass, and goodness, Dream was sorely tempted to turn Lux Fae just so he would not have to worry about any of it. It would not be too difficult. If her soul withstood the fire, it would be easy enough to mould the melting soul-flesh it into the shape of a Fae’s. If she didn’t, she would die. Done and done, with no room or reason for worry. 

But alas, it would be troublesome to return a Fae-turned child to a mortal mother; away from the magic-imbued Fae lands, she would likely die, or have to return to his Court anyway. It would be much less hassle to just keep her alive as a human for the next seventeen years. 

Or course, it would also be much less hassle if he just let her die now.

But Nightmare had wanted tragedy to befall them, and it would be better if he at least tried to prevent that. Perhaps Nightmare would be even the slightest bit satisfied by their grief. And seventeen years was a small price to pay to deny him it all.  *** Nightmare stormed up the steps of his palace. His footsteps left the ice cracking. 

Frost crept outward from his boots, trailing behind him like the afterfrost of a winter storm. The cold air was rising higher and higher, stirring violently in his wake. The mountain was completely quiet. No Fae would be so foolish as to cross the path of a furious Ruler. Even his own Fae were retreating into the deepest crevices of his Court. How dare they? The ward was meant to be his child. He could still remember the desperation of the mortal King, set into his face like cracks in brittle stone. His voice had trembled so greatly, more man than King, eyes hollowed by sleepless nights. He ought to have frozen him on the spot. Even if he’d been on the very borders between Spring and Winter— he ought to have lured him just a few steps off the path, then frozen him solid for the hubris. At least then an ice statue would make for decent decoration.

But he’d seen the desperation for a child, for a family. And he’d remembered the centuries long, long before his first collected soul; when there had still been so few Fae in the early beginnings of time, when he’d grown tired of seeing no one’s face but his own in the shimmering ice.

And it had been a fair deal. He wanted for a child too, did he not? All the mortals that came traipsing through Winter were always so brash and rude, most quite foolish and stupid, so rare was it that a mortal even half-worthy would be chanced upon. Even fewer were those who had survived their souls freezing over. 

In fact, there had been almost none claimed in the last few centuries. The number of new ice statues that littered Winter were perhaps a hundredfold that. 

He rolled his eyes. The amount of mortals that came seeking power, thinking themselves to be gods among men, only to be ensnared by the simplest trick and taken by the cold was innumerable; surely, by now, they would’ve learnt their lesson. He had watched them approach with bravado, their laughter echoing through the icy air, only to see that bravado falter as the frost seeped into their bones.

But men were always fools first. And he was getting bored of trophies. He’d wanted for something to break the monotony, and a child full of life and promise had seemed like the perfect remedy.

It had been a deal fairer than the rest. He had not laced it with his usual provisions; a child, for a child. How could it be any fairer? He had a room ready for the Princess, stories to put her to sleep, and the softest furs ready for her comfort. 

But by their own fallibility, they had lost their own child, and now they sought to claim his own? The frost crept up the walls.

He let out a quiet sigh, and dissolved the frost. 

The ice trickled away, and true enough, Killer was right there. He leaned against the side of the doorway with his usual casual air, though he did not approach. For all his usual audaciousness, he knew when to be cautious. 

“Approach.” He would not have another one of his own retreating from him as well. 

Killer did approach. "You’re upset," He said in a low amused drawl. Restrained, for him. Still wary, then. He took his usual place to the right of Nightmare’s throne, lazing on the steps to it.

Nightmare reached out to touch Killer’s cheek, the viscous hate gently dripping onto his palm. Though he didn’t have pupils, it was fairly obvious that Killer’s attention was on him. Good.

“They refuse me,” He said softly. Delicately. “They think they can take what’s mine.”

His thumb traced the line of Killer’s jaw. Killer didn’t flinch, but he was completely still. 

“Killer.”’

The silence stretched between them, heavy and thick. 

“Yes, Boss?” He grinned. Good enough. He gently stroked his cheek.

“They took her. They would steal from me, Killer.”

Killer let out a laugh. He stretched out further on the steps, arms lazily draped behind his head. “Stupid, aren’t they?” He drawled. He reached up, and grazed Nightmare’s palm on his cheek. “Why waste your time on them? Honestly, I’m surprised you bothered to go.”

“I’m very angry, Killer.”

His grin stretched out. “I know. But it’s not worth it, is it? You could freeze them with a flick of your wrist. Why not let me handle it? I haven’t had fun in so long.”

His lips curled into a hint of a smile. Ah, Killer was always so skilled at making him fondly irritated. “You had a hunt a week ago. And no. I’ll handle them myself.”

“Come on, Boss. It’ll be fun!”

“No, Killer.” 

He leaned in, just as he let go.

“Why not?”

“How long,” He quietly said. “Would the horror of a statue last?” 

Killer cocked his head to the side. “Not nearly long enough, huh?”

 They’re not just some stragglers that got unlucky. Nightmare’s gaze darkened. No escape for them, not even madness. Let them feel the full height of their stupidity with painfully lucid heads.

“I will find a way to my child,” He said slowly, “And it will be my pleasure to make it hell for the two stupid souls who thought trying to trick me was a decision that would end well for them.”

The thick frost was dripping on the walls.

Killer was quiet, once again.

“Why?”

He looked back to him. “Why what?”

“Why bother? What’s the child to you?”  

Nightmare opened his mouth. Then, he slowly scanned Killer.

“I’m curious, Killer. I ought to be angry. But you, oh, I don’t see why you’d be angry. And I don’t think you’re so loyal that you’d get angry on behalf of me.”

Killer’s grin was gone now.

"I don’t see how she’s worth it, Boss. She’s not even Fae. There’s dozens of brats running around you could pick up with ten times less fuss." A sharp gust of wind sliced through the room. Nightmare rolled his eyes. 

“Did I make a deal for all of them?”

He shrugged. “It’d be half the effort. Especially since your brother’s made a counterdeal.”

Killer’s casual arrogance was met with a long, chilling silence.

Nightmare’s lips curled up into something far from amused. The temperature in the room plummeted, and for the first time in ages, Killer felt the bite of the frost edging into his bone.

“You forget your place.”

Killer let out a breathy laugh. “Maybe. But I remember how we first met, and I don’t think you took me in because I was docile and pliant.”

Killer had been his first soul taken in as his. The first soul of his collection. Before Dust, even before Horror. Even after all this time, he was the same insolent soul.

He looked at him, and let out a long sigh. 

“Are you worried?”

“Who’s worried?” He got up from the steps. 

“You have a reason, you always do,” Nightmare said plainly. “Spit it out. What’s bothering you?”

The quiet footsteps of the other retreating were not so quiet in the otherwise silence. 

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that, Boss.”

The ice on the walls slowly began to recede.

"Don’t play games with me, Killer."

Killer shrugged. “I would do anything for you, Nightmare. I’ll just complain every step of the way.”

Nightmare made no move to stop the ice from melting, made no move to block off the doorway slowly forming. 

“Tell Horror and Dust to come out of hiding. It’s unbecoming.”

Killer let out a snort. Then he was through, and the ice quickly formed back over.

Nightmare stood in the dimly lit chamber, the cold light of the moon filtering through the ice. He let out a quiet sigh.

Outside, the storm abruptly ceased.

[secret-third-thing]

Chapter 4: Fathers, Be Good to Your Daughters

Another Eris chapter. I swear this isn't filler. Lot of fun lil details for the people with their conspiracy boards at home 🧡

Eris x OC | Rated E | Read on AO3 | Read on tumblr below the cut

Read on Tumblr: Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3

Gianna of Montesere's life is shattered when her family becomes the target of a chilling assassination attempt. Forced into exile at her estranged father's side in the Autumn court, she embarks on a journey that thrusts her into the treacherous depths of Prythian's most perilous family. Amidst the dazzling highs and heart-wrenching lows of cutthroat politics, Gianna discovers an unexpected love in Eris Vanserra that turns her world upside down.

Warnings: Typical violence and scheming, gambling, old-school slut shaming (nothing in this chapter other than more dead bird talk)

If you want to be on a taglist, let me know. I forgot to start one earlier.

No one stopped Eris as he left Forest House and walked to the estate’s perimeter, where the trees of the old Autumn Wood gave way to his father’s home. Here, the trees sparkled in the waning sun of the day; the leaves glimmering brilliant reds, oranges, and greens.

The forest was far older than his ancestral home, far older than the fae themselves. While there were various settlements throughout the Court, they had not been founded through some resource-based strategy, instead emerging where the trees had yielded to the fae. Any place the woods did not want them, their kind did not survive.

Advisor Bassell had not been wrong about what haunted the woods. A handful of Autumn’s tomes, located deep in the royal archives, documented ancient creatures that had once ruled Autumn. Eris had only seen the documents once when he had accompanied Beron into the deep recesses of the archives to search for mentions of some ancient artifact - a sword. From what he recalled, most of the ancients here had been the Daglan, the deathless monsters who had hunted his kind for sport. Several fae in Autumn would swear they could hear the call of the hunting horn echoing within the wood. And many young fae who had wandered into the thicket at night had never been found again. Beron insisted there wasn’t anything notable to report, of course.

Eris walked along the edge of the trees and past piles of birds until the servants removing the creatures were far behind him. He’d ask them questions later when they had finished and weren’t working under the pressure of his father’s watchful eye.

The songbirds that usually warbled at the end of the day were silent, now lifeless on the ground, leaving the surrounding area unusually quiet. Though he wasn’t frightened, Eris wished he had brought his hounds along. Even if his father didn’t believe in ancient beings, he certainly did; He knew what creatures roamed the woods of Spring. He had heard of what monsters the Night Court’s prison held. Eris was certain their kin were here as well.

As the mossy roof of the Forest House vanished from view, Eris noted less fallen birds in the area. He was confident that the servants had yet to make their way out here. It was as though the animals were aiming towards the estate. The cicadas had emerged and perished rather quickly, but the birds…. They had all been swarming Forest House. Something for him to investigate later.

He spotted a finch splayed out on the ground. Eris picked up the tiny thing, cradling it gently in his hands. The feathers of its wings were soft against his fingers. And yet Eris could sense some kind of magic on the bird, like residue. Something old… deep magic… Daglan magic. Bassell’s words echoed in his brain. Once his father’s meeting was done, he’d need to follow up with the advisor, probably tomorrow.

A rustle in the woods interrupted Eris’s train of thought. The male froze, still as a predator, and scanned the woods for any sign of movement. No other animals were in the area, nothing climbing the trees or leaping from branches. Eris stepped forward to the edge of the wood, almost at the threshold, where the roots of the trees emerged from the ground and twisted around each other.

The noise happened again, and Eris gazed into the depths of the forest beyond where he stood. He felt something staring back. Eris lifted a foot to step on a root and approached the creature, but the air seemed to crackle around him. Not quite a warning, but not an invitation. The hairs on the back of his neck rose, and his legs were unable to move him forward or away - he was stuck.

“Show yourself,” Eris said, his own voice wavering. He willed his hand to move to the pummel of his dagger belted at his waist, but his body was frozen, still grasping the bird. There was no response. Instead, a gust of wind blew out from the forest, nearly knocking him back, and the scent of oak and sweet moss curled around him.

Eris scoured his brain for a reason, to understand what was happening, but almost as soon as he felt the thing’s presence, it vanished. The only evidence of it being there was a patch of dead foliage on the ground turned a dark, sooty black, as though someone had set the forest floor alight. The air now smelled of smoke. Eris dared to step forward and nudged the soot with his boot. It seemed like simple debris, save for the circling of magic, bitter and earthy, swirling around him.

Eris wasted no time, winnowing back to Forest House and shutting himself away in his study. No creature of the wood would find him here. The study was small, tucked away in a less used area of the manor, but it offered him respite from the endless pestering of courtiers and servants. He sat down in the plush chair of his desk and took a moment to appreciate the solitude.

Soon, Eris examined the finch, turning the creature over in his hands. The bird was still intact, with no apparent harm. If anything, it seemed like it had been frozen in time when its little heart stopped. Eris stroked its head gently. Had it known it would die, a soldier in some death god’s game? Or had it been a surprise?

As Eris sent a tendril of magic into the bird, he encountered resistance, as if the deep magic, as the advisors had dubbed it, wanted him out. He retreated and frowned. Eris tried his magic again, this time ever so gently, letting it seep in rather than prod. He felt the threads of the other magic open until it started weaving with his, trying to pull him into the tapestry of whatever spell had enthralled and killed the creature.

Someone knocked on his study door, and Eris yanked his magic from the bird. It felt like he was ripping a cloth in half, an unsettling, tearing sensation. Eris furrowed his brow and grimaced, wondering if it was safe to have the bird in here at all. After a beat, he set the bird on a cloth and then removed his gloves.

“Come in,” Eris said. The door creaked open, revealing Bassell. The brunette male stole a glance behind him into the hallway before stepping into Eris’s lavish study.

“I was hoping to have a moment alone,” Bassell said softly. Eris flicked his hand, and the door sealed shut, a protective ward shimmering so no one could walk in or listen to their conversation.

“What is it?” Eris asked. Bassell settled into the other chair at Eris’ desk, his eyes fixed on the brown bird between them. He reached to touch the creature, but then hesitated. Gone was the fierce debater from his father’s meeting.

“I stand by what I said before,” he murmured. “The magic in these animals predates the fae. It’s ancient. But why it’s woven into such common creatures, I can’t fathom.”

“Whatever the magic, it’s still active,” Eris said, tapping his fingers against the arm of his chair. “It reacts and attaches to living magic.”

“Like an arcane parasite,” Bassell said. “May I?” He gestured to the bird.

“Be my guest,” Eris replied. He cocked a brow and watched the male hover his hand over the creature. Bassell closed his eyes and clenched his jaw in concentration. Not a minute later, his hand wavered, and he pulled it back quite suddenly.

“Fascinating,” he said with a shiver. He massaged his palm, likely having experienced the same ripping that Eris had.

“Is it?” Eris asked. “I’d think you’d be more concerned.”

“My apologies,” Bassell said. “It is concerning, but this kind of magic differs from what we know and use. I’m surprised your father isn’t more interested. This power is difficult to control, and more difficult to counter.”

“Give him time. My father will be if he isn’t already,” Eris said, as he watched the male continue to prod at the finch. “How much more do you know?”

Bassell paused, the bird giving off an eerie glow from whatever magic he was using.

“Not much at the moment, but I can send a report when my healers finish their research.” Bassell pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and gently wrapped it around the finch and bought it closer to him. He scanned its body, then turned it over. The eerie glow on the bird stopped. Eris sighed. He might as well give the finch to Bassell.

“I expect you to keep what you relay to my father to a minimum. And if you cannot, let me know what he knows.”

“You have my word.” Bassell replied. He was staring straight into the beady, black eyes of the creature. He didn’t seem like he was leaving any time soon, so Eris cleared his throat.

“Is this really why you’re here? Certainly, this conversation could have waited until tomorrow.”

“Well, yes… and no,” Bassell said. His eyes flickered away from the bird to the portrait of the Vanserra family hanging on the far wall behind the heir and then back to Eris. He gave a thin-lipped smile.

“What is it?” Eris pressed again. Bassell was always so hesitant.

“My daughter...” Bassell began, “She’s coming to Autumn.”

“I didn’t know you had a family,” Eris stated plainly. Well, most of his father’s advisors had a family: a wife, children. It was the respectable thing to do - something the Autumn Court valued. But Bassell never brought a wife with him to court. No children, young or grown, had been introduced to the Vanserras. It was unusual, but Eris hadn’t found a reason to pry until now.

“I don’t. She’s the result of an affair. Her mother is... noteworthy, and I was a fool for not marrying her,” Bassell said. The male possessed the slightest tinge of pink on his cheeks. His eyes were dancing across the room, hiding from Eris’ narrowed stare.

“I hope you are not implying what you seem to be,” Eris said.

Bassell put his hands up, horror plain on his face. “Oh, absolutely not,” he sputtered. “I-I would never presume -“

“Then do get to your point. It’s getting late and I have other things to do, Bassell,” Eris interjected, his voice even and cold.

“Gianna,” Bassell said. “Her name is Gianna.”

Eris frowned at this, waiting for Bassell to continue. It did not matter to him what she was named.

“Gianna is coming to Autumn sometime next week. Her mother is the spymaster,” Bassell said. “But she’s being accompanied by the emissary, not her mother.” This fact obviously meant something to the advisor. His brows were furrowed, and he seemed almost frazzled by the information.

“And does my father know?”

“He informed us after you left.”

Eris paused at this. It was peculiar for his father to allow a strange female from the continent into their court, especially one from Montesere. He recalled from several meetings ago that his father had been in contact with emissaries from the kingdoms on the continent, but a Gianna was not mentioned as someone of interest. It was equally strange that this news had not come from Bassell, the female’s father, but from his father... unless the advisor really did have an awful relationship with his former lover, something that Eris could at least understand.

“What else did he say?” he asked Bassell.

“Nothing. Only that she was staying at Forest House. I’ll be staying here as well.”

“How is this, at all, relevant to the birds?” Eris asked, suspicion lacing his words.

“I want to make a deal,” Bassell replied.

“You can’t be serious.”

“I am. Ensure my daughter stays out of trouble, and I’ll use all my resources to help you understand what’s happening in Autumn.” Bassell shifted in his seat. His shoulders were now squared, eyes boring into Eris’s with such confidence Eris hadn’t seen in the male before.

“I am not babysitting a spoiled brat from the continent,” Eris said, his patience wearing thin.

Bassell leaned over the desk, dangerously close. His eyes gleamed. “I know your goals. Use her as leverage, if you must. She has her family’s ear,” Bassell urged, barely above a whisper. Eris refused to acknowledge the implication.

“And did you offer this deal to my father as well? Is this why you sit at his table?” Eris asked. “Did you sell your daughter’s freedom for a chance at power? I recall you come from nothing.” Bassell flinched at Eris’s words.

“I did what any good father would do,” Bassell said. His jaw was set, and he grasped the arms of his chair.

“She was likely fine in Montesere,” Eris spat back. “What does my father intend now you’ve dragged her into this?”

“He only knows her heritage and offered her a place to stay. What else he plans is beyond my knowledge, Eris.”

The room fell into a tense silence, the weight of their unspoken agreement settling between them. Either Bassell was the worst politician he had met this century, or his father set another scheme in motion, one Eris somehow missed.

“I’ll make sure she doesn’t get herself killed,” Eris said. The only kind of agreement he’d willingly make. Bassell seemed satisfied with this and leaned back in his chair, a smile creeping onto his face.

“I think you’ll find the Monteserrans more interesting than you think.”

“If by interesting you mean scandalizing,” Eris said. “I can’t think of a group my father would hate more.”

“But what will you think?”

Eris scoffed at his answer, but Bassell simply hummed, lost in thought.